"Proscenium" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them. The Goddess of Liberty appears again—this time in a beaver overcoat—and pours some more incense on the obedient slave. An allegorical picture of Virtue appears in a red vest and military boots, on the left proscenium, John Brown the barber appears as Lady Macbeth, and says there is a blue tinge into his nails, and consequently he is an Octoroon. Another actor wants to define his position on the Euclid Street improvement, but is hissed down. Curtain descends ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... third tier, to the right of the vast horseshoe. Thus situated, it commanded a very comprehensive view of the interior of the house. The parterre—its somewhat comfortless seats, rising as on iron stilts, as they recede, row by row, from the proscenium—was packed. While, since the aristocratic world had not yet left town, the boxes—piled, tier above tier, without break of dress-circle or gallery, right up to the lofty roof—were well-filled. And it was the effect of these last that affected Richard oddly, displeasingly, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... in the second grade. I was amazed at no longer beholding the catskin cap and the chocolate-colored tights: on this occasion he was dressed like a little gentleman. In one balcony I caught a momentary glimpse of Votini, with a large lace collar; then he disappeared. In a proscenium box, filled with people, was the artillery captain, the father of Robetti, the boy with the crutches who saved the child from ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... order of architecture in which outward ornament is studied. There was nothing "florid" about it; canvas, ropes, scaffolding-poles, and old boards, threw an air of Saxon simplicity over the whole structure. Admitted within, we turned instinctively towards the stage. On each side of the proscenium boards was painted a knight in full armour, with powerful calves, weak knees, and an immense spear. Tallow candles, stuck round two hoops, threw a mysterious light on the green curtain, in front of which sat an orchestra of ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth; And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, I saw the fireplace changing to a bright proscenium. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This wall being the back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather less than one would have supposed. In other words, the stage was very shallow, and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers standing in a line, like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... dripped poison! He was drenched with it. How lightly Hermia's name had dropped from her satin wings! He smiled grimly at the thought of his own situation, the central figure in at least one act of this comedy, viewing it from the far side of the proscenium arch, gaping like the rustic in the metropolis who sees himself for the first time depicted upon the stage. What right had she—this little flutter-budget—to know these things—when he was denied them? Hermia—the ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... comfort. Since then the appearance of the interior has been changed very considerably. The two tiers of boxes were where they are now, but their fronts were perpendicular, and there was no bulging curve at the proscenium. Besides the two tiers of boxes, as they exist at present, there were twelve baignoirs, six on a side at the stage ends of the parquet circle, so-called. These were found to be unprofitable, and were abolished when the house was remodeled about ten ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... always sure to have tickets when the new piece needed booming, or when an old play failed to amuse and the audiences had begun to shrink. Indeed, the mystery of Mrs. Schuyler Van Tassell's frequent appearance in the left-hand proscenium box at the Winter Garden on Friday nights—a mystery unexplained among the immediate friends in Tarrytown, who knew how she husbanded her resources despite her accredited wealth—was no mystery at all to the guests at Miss Teetum's table, who were in the ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to bed was the burden of it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... became suddenly exhilarated at finding themselves in the inner circle of the soldiery, and bubbled with impotent suggestions and reverential laughter at the witticisms of Mr. Taylour. Fanny Fitz and Captain Carteret finally removed themselves to a grimy corner behind the proscenium, and there practised, sotto voce, the song with banjo accompaniment that was to culminate in the hornpipe. Freddy Alexander had gone forth to purchase a pack of cards, in the futile hope that he could prevail upon Mrs. Carteret to allow him to inflict conjuring ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... his handiworks, De Loutherbourg was especially adroit. He abandoned the unnatural system (introduced by Garrick on his return from the Continent in 1765) of lighting the stage by means of a flaming line of footlights, and ranged his lamps above the proscenium, out of sight of the audience. Before his lamps he placed slips of stained glass—yellow, red, green, blue, and purple; and by shifting these, or happily combining them, was enabled to tint his scenes ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... motto. Figures of ugly females, in plaster, bore up the second tier; groups of nymphs, in plaster, stared at you from the circle borders; grim visaged figures, in plaster, looked tauntingly at you from the proscenium; a troop of impolite figures, in plaster, beset you in flank and rear, and haunted you at every turn, as plaster figures had evidently haunted the imagination of the architect. In fine, every deficiency seemed compensated with an image in plaster, or, what was worse, one of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... of fixing his eyes on a certain proscenium box wherein were wont to sit certain notabilities in politics and finance. As several of these died during the first run of the work, superstitious people thought the box was bewitched, and no one cared to occupy it. Two fine works, "Charles VI." and "Le Val d'Andorre," succeeded at ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, and Westphalia; and in the rear, on common chairs, sat the dukes, princes, counts, and the large array of cavaliers and courtiers. The queens and princesses were seated in the proscenium-boxes on both sides of the stage, and the ladies of the haute-volee in their rich toilets and wealth of jewelry filled ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... real human beings a few feet from us; we see in the melodrama how the villain approaches his victim from behind with a dagger; we feel indignation and anger: and yet we have not the slightest desire to jump up on the stage and stay his arm. The artificial setting of the stage, the lighted proscenium before the dark house, have removed the whole action from the world which is connected with our own deeds. The consciousness of unreality, which the theater has forced on us, is the condition for our dramatic interest in the events ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... 234. Front. — N. front; fore, forepart; foreground; face, disk, disc, frontage; facade, proscenium, facia[Lat], frontispiece; anteriority[obs3]; obverse [of a medal or coin]. fore rank, front rank; van, vanguard; advanced guard; outpost; first line; scout. brow, forehead, visage, physiognomy, phiz[obs3], countenance, mut*[obs3]; rostrum, beak, bow, stem, prow, prore[obs3], jib. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the decorative Shakspearian panels on the proscenium.) They three old wimmin be a-pokin' o' that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 22, 1892 • Various
... in the dark again, falling, falling, gripping with aching hands, and behold! a clap of sound, a burst of light, and he was in a brightly lit hall with a roaring multitude of people beneath his feet. The people! His people! A proscenium, a stage rushed up towards him, and his cable swept down to a circular aperture to the right of this. He felt he was travelling slower, and suddenly very much slower. He distinguished shouts of "Saved! The Master. He is safe!" ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... down through the proscenium, as though I were a victim for sacrifice, and put me in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... repeatedly, "My wife! my good Louise! Truly, she should be well satisfied." The truth is, that the desire to see the Emperor at the theater was so great in Paris, that as he always took his place in the box at the side, opening on the proscenium, each time that he made his appearance there the boxes situated on the opposite side of the hall were rented at incredible figures, and even the uppermost tiers were preferred to those from which they could not see him easily. No one who lived in Paris at that time can fail to recognize ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and sat down in an armchair, while his mind reverted to more pleasant topics. He pictured to himself his father's store underneath what the townspeople called the opera house. He saw again that dingy little hall, with its small proscenium opening guarded by a frayed old curtain, and he smiled as he remembered the landscape it bore. With the sophistication of his race he had enjoyed many a good laugh at the performance that had evoked the tears of his fellow townsmen. What Rubes they were, to be sure! And yet, what good fellows the ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... subject of their admiration was what is rather affectedly called "The Heptaplasiesoptron," or fancy reflective proscenium, which is placed in the long room fronting the orchestra of the Rotunda. It is entirely lined with looking glass, and has in all probability originated in the curious effect produced by the kaleidoscope, and the looking ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... roomy, somewhat suggesting the Old Bowery Theatre, but lacking its cheerful aspect. The audience is without exception of the blousard class: the patrons of the Old Bowery, even in its latest years, were almost millionaires in comparison. The highest-priced seats (excepting the proscenium-boxes, which are never occupied) cost forty sous. You can sit in the gallery for five sous if you like the company of the Paris gamin. At the entrance of the theatre there is a placard which reads thus: "By paying twenty-five centimes one enters immediately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... hurriedly left. The first notes of the overture ran through the house, and loud applause was heard. This time, too, the gentleman in the proscenium box gave the signal for the applause, but no one appeared to ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... sitting side by side, seemed a museum of familiar countenances, society men, artists, journalists, the whole category of those that never fail to go where everyone else goes. In the balcony and in the boxes he noted and named to himself the women he recognized. The Comtesse de Lochrist, in a proscenium box, was absolutely ravishing, while a little farther on a bride, the Marquise d'Ebelin, was already looking through her lorgnette. "That is a pretty debut," said Bertin ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... the inner stage and shut off from the outer stage by a curtain. With the use of scenery, the inner stage became more important, and the projecting apron of the front stage was gradually cut down. The proscenium doors in front of the curtain long survived their original use as entrances, but, as a rule, they have now finally disappeared with the front stage. The modern picture-frame stage of to-day is the evolution of the inner ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... your case is none the better, for ordinary people don't get trapped into being bored by them, and such works can live without general support, whilst drama has to appeal to the bulk of us, and you cannot stick over the proscenium-arch some phrase such ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... of St. John's, and he allowed us to have a night with the children. Well, we removed a partition in the school-room dividing the boys' from the girls' department, and made a sort of shake-down stage at one end of the room, and with a scene and proscenium the place looked like a pretty little theatre. There was a crowded audience for our performance, including the vicar and Mrs Mayne, the curate of St. John's (who, by-the-way, was a coloured gentleman), Mr John Butterfield, brother of Mr H. I. Butterfield, of Cliffe Castle, and, indeed, a good ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... person, but of a wild and savage beauty, was in a small box on the stage, in rear of the proscenium. She ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... corners of the cabin was a most peculiar-looking affair, very like a Punch and Judy show. On the proscenium, as it were, large Chinese letters were painted. Inside was an image or idol (the joss), carved in wood, with gorgeous gilded paper stuck all round him. A small crowd of diminutive Chinamen knelt before him, doing homage. On the ledge before ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... wood without paint ("or polish"); in the interior a gallery and two side-galleries, below them a parterre, and on each side of it a standing-place, all of plain, unpainted boards. The orchestra was sunk below the level of the stage, the proscenium painted to represent columns and entablature. The curtain represented, or seemed intended to represent, Jerusalem. The whole place could not probably contain over six hundred people, and was about half full. There were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... on a canvas; or write it in great plays which open the dark chambers of the soul and make the heart stand still; or sing it in sweet and terrible verse, full-throated utterance of man's pride and hope and passion. Some act it before the altar or beneath the proscenium arch; some speak it, now in Cassandra-tones, now comfortably like shepherds of frail sheep. These folk are the brothers-in-blood, the fellow craftsmen of the preacher. By a silly convention, he is almost forbidden to consult with them, and to betake himself to the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... theater party—her husband was always fond of the diversion of the theater. The party was to include General and Mrs. Grant. But the general's plans required him to go that evening to Philadelphia, and so Major Rathbone and Miss Harris were substituted. This party occupied the upper proscenium box on the right of ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... theatre bureau, as he had determined to sell all the tickets himself. For the first night of "Les Ressources de Quinola" the audience was to be brilliantly representative of the aristocracy, beauty, and talent of France. The proscenium would, Balzac hoped, be occupied by ambassadors and ministers, the pit by the Chevaliers de St. Louis, and the orchestra stalls by peers; while deputies and state functionaries were to be placed in the second gallery, financiers in the third, and rich ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... foretaste of Spain. I discovered an unconscionable amount of local color. I discovered it at St. Jean de Luz, the last French town, in a great brown church, filled with galleries and boxes, like a playhouse—the altar and chair, indeed, looked very much like a proscenium; at Bohebia, on the Bidassoa, the small yellow stream which divides France from Spain, and which at this point offers to view the celebrated Isle of Pheasants, a little bushy strip of earth adorned with a decayed commemorative ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... rehearsal mumble in the half-dark that there was never anything like this seen on earth or in heaven. Mr. Anisfeld's scenery explodes like a succession of medieval skyrockets. A phantasmagoria of sound, color and action crowds the startled proscenium. For there is no question but that the proscenium, with the names of Verdi, Bach, Haydn and Beethoven chiseled on it, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... dwelt long with Sterling; and for a good while, I fancy, kept possession of the proscenium of his mind; madly parading there, to the exclusion of all else,—coloring all else with their own black hues. He was young, rich in the power to be miserable or otherwise; and this was his first grand sorrow which had now ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... his writing table, he has on his right the windows giving on Portland Place. Through these, as through a proscenium, the curious spectator may contemplate his profile as well as the blinds will permit. On his left is the inner wall, with a stately bookcase, and the door not quite in the middle, but somewhat further from him. Against the wall opposite ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... public and not at it, although such a change would be highly desirable. I dare not even dream of beholding the actor's back throughout an important scene, but I wish with all my heart that crucial scenes might not be played in the centre of the proscenium, like duets meant to bring forth applause. Instead, I should like to have them laid in the place indicated by the situation. Thus I ask for no revolutions, but only for a few minor modifications. To make a real room of the stage, with the fourth wall missing, and a ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg |
