Theatre vs. Orchestra — What's the Difference?

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance.

An orchestra (; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba percussion instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and mallet percussion instrumentseach grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano, harpsichord, and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone as soloist instruments, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments and guitars.A full-size Western orchestra may sometimes be called a symphony orchestra or philharmonic orchestra (from Greek phil-, "loving", and "harmony").

A building or outdoor area in which plays and other dramatic performances are given.

A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including strings, woodwinds, brass instruments, and percussion instruments.

A room or hall for lectures with seats in tiers.

The instruments played by such a group.

The area in which something happens

The area in a theater or concert hall where the musicians sit, immediately in front of and below the stage.

Variant of theater.

The front section of seats nearest the stage in a theater.

Alternative spelling of theater

The entire main floor of a theater.

A cinema; movie theatre.

A semicircular space in front of the stage used by the chorus in ancient Greek theaters.

A building where theatrical performances or motion-picture shows can be presented;

(music) A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments played by such a group.

The art of writing and producing plays

A semicircular space in front of the stage used by the chorus in Ancient Greek and Hellenistic theatres.

A region in which active military operations are in progress;

The area in a theatre or concert hall where the musicians sit, immediately in front of and below the stage, sometimes (also) used by other performers.

The space in a theater between the stage and the audience; - originally appropriated by the Greeks to the chorus and its evolutions, afterward by the Romans to persons of distinction, and by the moderns to a band of instrumental musicians. Now commonly called orchestra pit, to distinguish it from the section of the main floor occupied by spectators.

The space in the main floor of a theater in which the audience sits; also, the forward spectator section of the main floor, in distinction from the parterre, which is the rear section of the main floor.

The place in any public hall appropriated to a band of instrumental musicians.

Loosely: A band of instrumental musicians performing in a theater, concert hall, or other place of public amusement.

The instruments employed by a full band, collectively; as, an orchestra of forty stringed instruments, with proper complement of wind instruments.

A musical organization consisting of a group of instrumentalists including string players

Seating on the main floor in a theater