Early Outdoor Theater

An amphitheater built on a campus, civic center, or private estate for community performances and memorial ceremonies as democratic gestures created to bring music, drama, masques, and other civic ceremonies to all. Popularized by landscape architect Frank A. Waugh in his 1917 treatise, Outdoor Theaters, these theaters were diverse in their architectural typologies: architectural theaters (usually Greek in style for democratic reference) highlighted nature through contrast, while nature theaters, used natural materials and irregular geometries to merge with nature.