How is cinema a continuation of theater

Industry leaders lobbied governments to let them reopen. Some ejected sneezers or used staggered seating to socially distance audiences.

As the pandemic ravaged the country, consolidation fever consumed the industry. Opportunists took advantage of the real victims of the flu bans: independent theaters. The big chains, armed with capital, bought out their hobbled competitors , while bigger distribution companies gobbled up smaller ones. A new Hollywood studio system dominated by money and profits slowly started to take shape. Trailblazer Adolph Zukor used Wall Street financing to take control of the reeling Famous Players-Lasky company and merged it with Paramount distribution, creating a studio that cranked out films with Ford-like efficiency.

With its soaring profits, it continued turning independent theaters into exclusive Paramount exhibitors across the country to monopolize access to audiences. Others companies followed suit. Industry players desperate to recoup their pandemic losses traded their independence to be a part of the post-pandemic Hollywood, an oligopoly of vertically integrated companies that only distributed and screened the films they produced.

In the s, Hollywood faced a second destructive event of the 21st century: television, a new technology that could broadcast content directly into American homes. On the television, the motion picture form shifted from standard, feature-length films to serialized content similar to what people listened to on the radio. The studio system felt the crunch. People who once went out to the movies multiple times a week now stayed home to watch TV.

By , there were commercial stations and 26 million homes with TVs , and studio profits dramatically declined. When everything goes right in spite of what could have gone wrong, it just makes a good show even better. Theatre is alive and three dimensional, with audiences sharing an experience and space with the actors performing and their fellow audience members. This valuable sharing of experiences with live actors and audiences is a valuable and necessary component for human connection.

Stories are told by living, breathing people, which cultivates empathy within audiences. Theatre connects to how humans learn to connect to each other; storytelling is one of the oldest human impulses. And live performances provide an outlet for the most powerful manifestation of this impulse. The audience will be different and the energy in the room will affect how actors perform. Everyone has a distinct and unique experience when watching a play — something which can never be replicated.

Children and adults alike can share in the wonder of a live play and feel the emotions behind every performance. Get in touch with our Box Office by giving us a call on and book your tickets for an amazing live performance!

You can also join the Club for discounts on your tickets and to help support The Grand. Major chains such as Cineworld, the U. To survive beyond the pandemic, theaters must persuade moviegoers not just to come back, but to come back more frequently than they did—to start thinking of their local cinema as akin to their favorite coffee shop.

Moviegoing, simply put, is hoping to meet your post-pandemic needs. You probably noticed that major cineplexes were moving in a digital direction long before the pandemic. Paperless ticketing and online seat reservations were becoming common, but the shutdown provided the opportunity to fine-tune such services. Alamo Drafthouse did the same, adding to its app the feature to order food in advance. But do expect the private auditorium rentals that theaters began offering during the pandemic to stick around.

And most theaters, he added, will maintain staggered showtimes to allow for cleaning between screenings and to keep guests comfortable—no more shoving your way past departing moviegoers to get to your seat, at least for the time being. It might seem obvious, but theaters depend on frequent moviegoers, defined as those who see a movie at least once a month.

In the U.