NARRATOR:
You will hear Maya and Finn, two theater studies students, discussing their project on theater programs.
NARRATOR:
First you have some time to look at questions 21 to 26.
NARRATOR:
Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 26.
MAYA:
So Finn, I think I've taken my part of the research as far as I can.
MAYA:
How are you getting on?
FINN:
I didn't realize Americans use the word playbill for a theater program.
FINN:
Until I began reading about the subject.
FINN:
It wasn't easy to find many worthwhile websites, but I'm still pleased we chose it.
FINN:
Nobody else on the course is covering the same topic, although it is one of our module leaders research interests.
MAYA:
That connection may actually have discouraged some people.
FINN:
Another thing I hadn't known was that there are entire businesses devoted to producing theater programs.
MAYA:
They're fairly widespread these days.
MAYA:
People often assume a theater pays a company to make its programs, but that's not how the arrangement works.
MAYA:
The companies purchase the right to publish on a theater's behalf and then earn their income by selling space to advertisers inside the booklet.
FINN:
I can see why theaters find that more convenient.
FINN:
I came across some material about programs in the early days of British theater.
FINN:
The actors listed in them seemed to have mattered enormously.
MAYA:
Audiences knew the leading performers extremely well, and a celebrated name could bring in a huge crowd.
FINN:
What astonished me was that once a famous actor appeared on the program, the audience regarded it as a promise that the person would perform.
FINN:
If someone else went on instead, people claimed the theater had broken its agreement with them.
FINN:
They asked for their money back, and there were even riots when refunds were refused.
MAYA:
That's extraordinary.
MAYA:
You couldn't imagine it happening now.
FINN:
No, even if the star misses a performance, disappointed audiences are much too restrained for that.
MAYA:
We should certainly put that point about early audiences in the project.
MAYA:
We also need to explain that many ordinary people couldn't read then, so printed programs weren't much use for publicizing a play.
MAYA:
When a troupe reached a town, the actors would advertise the performance themselves by marching through the streets in costume, beating drums, and calling out what they were going to stage.
FINN:
That's another practice that's hard to picture today.
MAYA:
There's a useful contrast to draw between programs from the 18th and 19th centuries too.
FINN:
Didn't 19th century versions begin to look more like the programs we're familiar with now?
MAYA:
Unlike those from the 18th century, they consistently included color.
FINN:
And their designs were more varied.
FINN:
Even so, I prefer the 18th century ones, because they gave the audience so much information, including details about the performers.
MAYA:
They covered the playwright and the story as well, and sometimes even included the play's background.
FINN:
What are we going to say about programs in the 20th century?
MAYA:
I think the major point is how sharply they changed during the Second World War.
FINN:
Because the government limited the amount of paper people could use.
MAYA:
Yes, though that only applied in Britain.
MAYA:
American playbills kept the same format throughout.
FINN:
Here, however, a program was reduced to one sheet, folded into four pages of text.
MAYA:
What puzzles me is why, once the war ended, British programs stayed exactly like that for more than 25 years instead of expanding or changing.
MAYA:
Paper remained scarce for perhaps another five or ten years, but not for the whole of that period.
FINN:
It is difficult to explain.
NARRATOR:
Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 27 to 30.
NARRATOR:
Now listen and answer questions 27 to 30.
MAYA:
I've collected some images of programs that we could use on the slides for our presentation.
FINN:
I've found two as well.
FINN:
Let's work through them and decide which ones are useful.
MAYA:
All right, here's an old program for re-bloss.
FINN:
I don't know the play, but the program itself is very ornate.
MAYA:
You could frame it and hang it on a wall.
MAYA:
The illustrations are beautiful.
MAYA:
What have you got, Finn?
FINN:
Several pages from a program for Man of La Mancha.
FINN:
It's worth showing, not for its pictures, but for the articles contributed by people in the theater company.
FINN:
They reveal how the production was put together and what the cast thought and felt about it.
MAYA:
That would be useful.
MAYA:
I also have a program that's now kept in a museum.
MAYA:
It's for the tragedy of Jane Shore.
MAYA:
It's believed to be the oldest surviving item printed on the first press ever used in Australia.
MAYA:
We could also mention the program for the Sailors Festival.
MAYA:
It's part of the British Library's digitized program collection, which was launched only a few years ago.
MAYA:
The collection already contains more than 200,000 programs, which is incredible.
FINN:
I wish I'd discovered it while I was doing my research.
NARRATOR:
That is the end of part three.
NARRATOR:
You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part three.
