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LucasBrown (talk | contribs) Adding local short description: "Small stage for imitating or testing full-scale productions", overriding Wikidata description "Small stage made of paper on which the technical diversity of a human stage can be imitated or tested in model form." |
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{{Short description|Small stage for imitating or testing full-scale productions}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2022}}
[[File: Toy theatre (c.1845-50), Edinburgh Museum of Childhood.JPG|thumb|Toy Theater (c.1845–50) by John Redington of London, showing a scene from Isaac Pocock's two-act play "The Miller And His Men". An exhibit in the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood]]
'''Toy theater''', also called '''paper theater''' and '''model theater''' (also spelt '''theatre''', see [[British and American spelling differences|spelling differences]]), is a form of miniature theater dating back to the early 19th century in Europe. Toy theaters were often printed on [[paperboard]] sheets and sold as kits at the [[concession stand]] of an [[opera house]], [[Theater (structure)|playhouse]], or [[vaudeville|vaudeville theater]]. Toy theatres were assembled at home and performed for family members and guests, sometimes with live musical accompaniment. Toy theatre saw a drastic decline in popularity with a shift towards [[realism (theatre)|realism]] on the European stage in the late 19th century, and again with the arrival of television after [[World War II]].<ref>Bell, John. "A Short Entertaining History of Toy Theater." Cambridge: Great Small Works, 2008.</ref> Toy theatre has seen a resurgence in recent years among many [[puppeteer]]s, authors and filmmakers and there are numerous international toy theatre festivals throughout the Americas and Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|
==History==
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The original toy theatres were mass-produced replicas of popular plays, sold as kits that people assembled at home, including stage, scenery, characters and costumes. They were printed on paperboard, available at English playhouses and commercial libraries for "a penny plain or two pence coloured." Hobbyists often went to great pains to not only hand-colour their stages but to embellish their toy theatre personae with bits of cloth and tinsel; [[tinsel print]] characters could be bought pre-tinselled, or a wide range of supplies for home tinselling could be bought. Just as the toy-sized stages diminished a play's scale, their corresponding scripts tended to abridge the text, paring it down to key characters and lines for a shorter, less complicated presentation.
In the first half of the 19th century, more than 300 of London's most popular plays saw the issue as toy theatres. Publishers sent artists to the playhouses of [[Georgian era|Georgian]] and early-[[Victorian era|Victorian]] London to record the scenery, costumes and dramatic attitudes of the greatest successes of the day. The theatre management often provided these artists with a free seat, as the toy theatre sheets were excellent free advertising.<ref>George Speaight. ''Juvenile Drama (the History Of The English Toy Theatre) (1946)''</ref>
===Late 19th and early 20th century===
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* A toy theater appears near the end of [[The Railway Children (1970 film)|''The Railway Children'' (1970 film)]].
* Author/artist [[Edward Gorey]] designed a mass-produced toy theater based on his set designs for the 1977 stage production of ''[[Dracula (1924 play)|Dracula]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Edward Gorey's Dracula Toy Theatre|url=https://beta.stageplays.com/products/edward_goreys_dracula_toy_theatre|access-date=2021-06-21|website=Stageplays.com|language=en}}</ref>
* A toy theater is featured at the beginning of [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s award-winning 1982 film ''[[Fanny and Alexander]]''.<ref>{{Citation|last=
* [[Carroll Ballard]] and [[Maurice Sendak]]'s 1986 film version of ''[[The Nutcracker]]'' featured toy theater.
* Set designer [[Heidi Landesman]] based her designs for the 1991 musical'' [[The Secret Garden (musical)|The Secret Garden]]'' on toy theatres.<ref>[[Theatre Crafts]] magazine Oct. 1991 p. 42</ref>
* [[Julie Taymor]] used toy theater puppets in a scene for the 2002 film ''[[Frida (2002 film)|Frida]].''
* [[Sean Meredith]]'s comedic'' [[Dante's Inferno (2007 film)|Dante's Inferno]]'' (2007) is an entire toy theater film.
* Toy theaters are a motif in a number of [[Jan Švankmajer]]'s films.
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* [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], German author
* [[Edward Gorey]], American author
* [[Emma Lomax]], English composer and pianist, Early Victorian Theatre, Brighton
* [[Alfred Lunt]], American actor
* [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]], Italian poet and founder of the Futurist movement
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*[[Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop]]
{{commonscat|Toy theatre}}
==References==
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