Theatre

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").

Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general.

Theatrical (horse)

Theatrical (13 March 1982 – 31 August 2012) was an Irish-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 1987 Breeders' Cup Turf and was a successful sire.

Background

Theatrical was a tall bay horse with a narrow white blaze, and white socks on his hind legs bred by Bertram & Diana Firestone at their Gilltown Stud in Kilcullen, County Kildare, Ireland. He was sired by Nureyev the disqualified "winner" of the 1980 2000 Guineas. His dam was the Irish mare Tree Of Knowledge.

Racing career

Theatrical won his only race as a two-year-old, a maiden race over eight and a half furlongs at Gowran Park in October. Timeform commented "will stay 1¼ miles; sure to go on to much better things." Racing at age three on the turf, under jockey Michael Kinane he won the Ballysax Stakes and the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial. In the Epsom Derby he was ridden by Lester Piggott and finished seventh behind Slip Anchor. He was re-united with Kinane for the Irish Sweeps Derby in which he finished second to Law Society, but then ran unplaced behind Commanche Run in the Irish Champion Stakes. Late in the year, he was sent to the United States to compete in the Breeders' Cup Turf at Aqueduct Racetrack in New York City, where he finished eleventh. Theatrical returned to race in the 1986 Turf, where the heavily favored Dancing Brave finished fourth. Theatrical was beaten by a neck in finishing second to Manila.