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The "Orpheion", also known as the Orpheion Theater, is a traditional outdoor Greek hillside theater on the Irving, Texas, campus of the University of Dallas. The name is a Greek diminutive of Orpheus, the poet and musician of classical mythology who through his music and art could charm even the mute stones and trees to life.〔the ''Argonautica'' of Apollonius Rhodius, Book I.26-27〕 The space consists of a bowl of earth, part-natural and part-man-made, (in Greek the "theatron" or 'seeing place' for the spectators to sit) that half-encircles, at the base of the bowl, a nearly circular (actually octagonal) stone stage (the "orchestra" or 'the place where the chorus dances'). Abutting the rear of the stage, in size and form variant on the needs of the particular production, is a temporary wooden structure (the "skene" or 'tent' where the Greek actors could enter and exit, and probably also change masks and costumes, etc.). This structure often holds a curtain or curtains for thespian ingress and egress. Behind the skene is a copse of oak trees, with paths for the actors and crew. ==Inspiration== The inspiration for such an outdoor hillside theater came from the University of Dallas Rome Program, the semester study-abroad during which students, usually sophomores, live and study on the "Due Santi" campus, southeast of Rome. This campus, purchased by the University of Dallas in 1990,〔(History & Location - University of Dallas )〕 included a natural hillside between what is now the dormitory and the cappuccino bar; the campus architects built this slope into a roughly semi-circular stone outdoor theater, commonly (though erroneously) termed the "Amphitheater." ("Amphitheaters" are actually fully enclosed ellipses, like the famed Amphitheatrum Flavium, better known as the Coliseum.) The Rome Campus was officially inaugurated June 1994,〔 and each fall and spring thereafter the campus has housed around a hundred students, plus faculty, staff, and their families. To complement and bring to life the Greek and Shakespearean plays that they read for class, University of Dallas students regularly stage full-length plays and shorter vignettes in this outdoor 'amphitheater.' Further, as part of the official Rome Program, the students travel to Greece for ten days, where they visit, and often perform readings in, such outdoor theaters such as the Theater of Dionysos in Athens, the Theater in Delphi,〔(p. 5 )〕 and the Theater of Epidaurus,〔(Front Page )〕 the latter world-famous for its stunning acoustics and natural beauty. During their own independent travels, students have also visited the many still-standing Greco-Roman theaters spread throughout the Mediterranean: in Syracuse, Sicily, Segesta, Taormina, Gubbio, Verona, Pompeii, Ostia Antica, Hadrian's Villa, et cetera. Image:Orpheion Warmups.jpg|A view of the Rome Campus theater from the audience looking onto the stage, with student actors rehearsing, Spring 2002 Image:Frogs_program.JPG|The front of the program for the student production of ''The Frogs'', Spring 1999 Inspired by the hillside theaters of Greece and Rome, students returned to their hilly campus in Irving, Texas, in the area called Las Colinas (the "hills" in Spanish), and there they planned to recreate outdoor classical theater. Several hills on the campus were considered—for instance, the hill between the Church of the Incarnation and Jerome Hall—but all have flaws: e.g., the audience would have to look directly into the setting sun, there was too much exposure to foot and road traffic, there was not a steep enough slope, there was no ready access to power and water, and so forth. From the fall of 1999 until the late spring and summer of 2003, the idea lay dormant. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Orpheion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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