THE THEATRE SPACE: THE SOCIAL MEDIA STAGE.

BY

MONIJESU EBUBE

Department of Theatre and Film Arts, Faculty of Arts,

University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria.

Email: asikomonijesu@gmail.com, ebubem@unijos.edu.ng

Phone: +2348033670664

ABSTRACT

The theatre is in a convergence mode. Digital technology is continuously expanding the theatre-space. The emergence of online streaming on various social media platforms, has enlarged the theatre space, increased visibility and created possibilities. This paper endeavours to establish the usefulness of the Social Media platform as the new theatre stage. The theatre audiences are able to access the theatre easily on one hand, and the theatre is able to reach a wider audience on the other. When the platform of the Social Media serves as the stage, plays that would ordinarily have gone unnoticed by many audience now go places. With this platform, a Theatre practitioner stands the chance of not just getting the box office returns during live streaming of the plays, but he/she also gets continuous returns each time the recorded video is watched on social media platforms. In this regard, it gives the stage plays an edge over screen, which only get returns “after”, but never during the shootings. The social media theatre is a digital theatre which uses the power of the Internet to get to unimaginable wide audience.

KEYWORDS: Theatre, Digital Space, Social Media