399 articles
Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria (French: fantasmagorie) was a horror entertainment in which a hidden magic lantern projected ghosts onto screens, smoke, or walls, popular from 1792 through the 19th century.
Phillipa Soo
Phillipa Soo (born 1990) is an American actress and singer who originated Eliza Hamilton in Broadway's Hamilton, winning a Grammy and earning Tony and Emmy nominations; also known for Amelie, Into the Woods, Camelot, Doctor Odyssey, and the children's book Piper Chen Sings.
Practical aesthetics
Practical Aesthetics, or the Atlantic Technique, is an action-based acting method developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy in the early 1980s, taught at the Atlantic Acting School, using four-step script analysis: literal, want, essential action, as-if.
Praveenar Singh (ประวีณา สิงห์)
Praveenar Singh (ประวีณา สิงห์), also known as Veena Praveenar Singh, is a Thai actress of Indian heritage who won Miss Universe Thailand 2025 and placed first runner-up at Miss Universe 2025.
Prop
Prop (short for "property") is the movable object used in theater, film, or TV performance that is neither set nor costume. Covers etymology, prop categories, the props department, and reuse.
Proscenium
Proscenium, or picture-frame stage (Dutch lijsttheater, German Guckkastenbühne): a theatre form with an arch separating auditorium from stagehouse; its etymology, history, masking, fourth wall, and comparison with thrust and arena stages.
Prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup is a special effects discipline using sculpted silicone, foam latex, or gelatine appliances applied to performers to create aging, wounds, and creatures; pioneered by Lon Chaney and Dick Smith, recognized by the Emmy category Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup.
Public speaking
Public speaking: delivering speeches to live audiences to inform, persuade, or entertain, also called rhetoric or oratory. Covers its Greek rhetorical roots, elocution movement, Toastmasters training, delivery modes, and speech anxiety management.
Ramin Karimloo (رامین کریملو)
Ramin Karimloo (رامین کریملو), born 1978 in Tehran, is an Iranian-Canadian musical theatre actor and singer, Olivier and Tony nominee, known for the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies and Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, returning as the Phantom in Shanghai in 2026.
Redgrave family
The Redgrave family, a British acting dynasty spanning six generations from Cornelius and Roy Redgrave through Sir Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, Vanessa, Corin, and Lynn, and the Richardson and Jemma Redgrave generation.
Respect for Acting
Respect for Acting, Uta Hagen's 1973 Macmillan book written with Haskel Frankel, is a Stanislavski-based acting manual built on her object exercises, substitution, and nine character questions; a durable standard text reissued in a 2023 expanded edition.
RhonniRose Mantilla
RhonniRose Mantilla is an American actress and musical theatre performer, a Baldwin Wallace graduate, Broadway ensemble member in Harmony (2023), and Chelsea Hamilton on CBS's Beyond the Gates (2025).
Richard Kiley
Richard Paul Kiley (1922-1999), American stage, television, and film actor and baritone singer; two-time Tony winner, best known as the original Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha and the first to sing The Impossible Dream, also an Emmy-winning TV actor and documentary narrator.
Richard McCabe
Richard McCabe (born 1960) is a Scottish actor and RSC Associate Artist who won the 2013 Olivier Award and 2015 Tony Award for playing Harold Wilson in The Audience alongside Helen Mirren.
Robert Bella
Robert Bella: American actor, director, writer, and teacher; NYU-trained under Adler, Mamet, and Macy; founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company (1985) and teacher of Mamet's Practical Aesthetics; later The Rookie and Castle writer-director.
Robert Fox (producer)
Robert Michael John Fox (1952–2026), English theatre, film, and TV producer; founder of Robert Fox Ltd (1980), producer of over 50 West End and 17 Broadway shows, executive producer of Netflix's The Crown, and producer of The Hours, Iris, and Lazarus.
Robin Antin
Robin Antin (born 1961) is an American choreographer who created the Pussycat Dolls, founded in 1995 as a Viper Room burlesque revue and turned into a pop group via Interscope; she also formed Girlicious, Paradiso Girls, and G.R.L., owns Playground LA, and settled a 2021 lawsuit with Nicole Scherzinger.
Rod Hull
Rod Hull (Rodney Stephen Hull, 1935–1999) was an English comedian and children's entertainer whose Emu puppet, found in an Australian props room in 1969, attacked celebrities and TV hosts; he died falling from a roof adjusting his TV aerial.
Roland the Farter
Roland the Farter (Roland le Fartere, Roland le Petour) was a twelfth-century English court flatulist who held Hemingstone manor, Suffolk, by serjeanty from the Crown, owing an annual Christmas performance of one jump, one whistle, and one fart, attested in the Liber Feodorum.
Rory O'Malley
Rory O'Malley (Rory James O'Malley), born 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, is an American musical theatre actor and Tony nominee who originated Elder McKinley in The Book of Mormon and played King George III in Hamilton, and co-founded Broadway Impact for marriage equality.
Rosie Sheehy
Rosie Sheehy, Welsh actress from Port Talbot and RADA graduate (2015), twice Olivier Best Actress nominee for Machinal (2025) and Guess How Much I Love You? (2026), with stage credits including Oleanna, The Oresteia, and screen work in Chernobyl and Pillion.
Roxxxy Andrews
Roxxxy Andrews (Michael Feliciano) is an American drag performer from Orlando, Florida, runner-up on Drag Race season 5 (2013) to Jinkx Monsoon and on All Stars 9 alongside Vanjie, famed for her double wig reveal and lip syncs.
Ruthie Ann Miles
Ruthie Ann Miles (Ruthie Ann Blumenstein), Korean-American stage and TV actress born 1983; Tony winner 2015 as Lady Thiang in The King and I; originated Imelda Marcos in Here Lies Love; 2023 Sweeney Todd Tony nominee.
Ruthie Henshall
Ruthie Henshall (Valentine Ruth Henshall, born 1967) is an English musical theatre actress and Olivier Award winner (She Loves Me, 1995), the only British actress to play all three leading female roles in Chicago, known for Les Misérables, Cats, Billy Elliot, and her memoir The Showgirl and the Prince.
Saïd Ben Mohamed
Saïd Ben Mohamed (Saïd Mahomet), Moroccan itinerant performer in French police registers: an acrobat registered 1845–46 (born Ayt Hha, domiciled Oran) and possibly a lyric singer 1874–77 (born Mogador); alias 'Le Petit sans Pareil' unattested.
Sally Murphy (actress)
Sally Murphy (born 1962, Chicago) is an American actress and Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1993, known for originating Broadway roles in The Grapes of Wrath, Carousel, August: Osage County, and Linda Vista, and for films Scent of a Woman, Fearless, and Pollock.
Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes (born 1965) is a British stage and film director, Oscar winner for American Beauty, former Donmar Warehouse artistic director, director of Skyfall, Spectre, 1917, and the four-film Beatles biopic project.
Sam Wanamaker
Sam Wanamaker (1919-1993), American actor, director, and producer, founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust in 1970 and campaigned for over two decades to rebuild Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London; the site's indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opened in 2014 is named for him.
Samantha Pauly
Samantha Pauly (born 1989, Bettendorf, Iowa) is an American actress and singer, original Katherine Howard in Broadway's SIX, Eva Perón in the 2019 West End Evita, and original Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby; Drama Desk and Joseph Jefferson Award winner.
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner (1905–1997), American actor and Group Theatre founding member, created the Meisner Technique of actor training, centered on the repetition exercise, 'living truthfully under imaginary circumstances,' and over 60 years teaching at the Neighborhood Playhouse.