Magic lantern

The magic lantern was an early form of projector, widely used for entertainment and educatonal purposes in the 18th and 19th centuries.

History

Also known by its Latin name, lanterna magica, the apparatus was ostensibly first fully developed by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens in the late 17th century and was initially largely used for entertainment purposes. Increasingly also used for education during the 19th century, when smaller smaller versions were also mass-produced as toys.

Initially used to present picture shows, as self-standing acts, it soon also became a useful tool in spectacle oriented theatre productions, such as melodramas.

The magic lantern lost favour as an entertainment form in itself, by the end of the 19th century, as motion pictures evolved, and was eventually superseded as a piece of theatrical equipment byb the development of a compact version that could hold many 35 mm photographic slides: namely the slide projector. This in turn, was itself later replaced by far more versatile inventions of the computer age, such as digital power point projectors and digital movie projectors and so on.

The term was also used for various theatrical companies and venues over the years, e.g. Rainbow and Magic Lantern Cinemas, in Canada, Magic Lantern, a theater in Bridgton, Maine, United States, Laterna Magika, a Czech theater in Prague and Magic Lantern, a street theater and puppetry group in the 1970s,

The magic lantern in South African theatre and performance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern