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Theatre Midterm
All of the vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Mediated Theatre | any theatrical performance originally created for live performance (live actors in visual proximity to a live audience, although this distinction is hardly absolute) and subsequently recorded onto any visually reproducible medium, including film videotape |
| Non-mediated Theatre | Theatre that is not observed through an electronic medium. Regional Theatres. Permanent, professional, non-profit theatres offering first-class productions to their audiences. |
| Traditional performances | Traditional theatre performances usually combine acting, singing, dance and music, dialogue, narration or recitation but may also include puppetry or pantomime. |
| Non-traditional performances | Presentation of live performance to an audience who could be seated, standing or (walking around), who are accommodated in an area essentially different to an area in which traditional live performance is presented: e.g. a stage and an auditorium. |
| Theatrical Performances | a performance of a play. synonyms: histrionics, representation, theatrical. types: matinee. a theatrical performance held during the daytime (especially in the afternoon) |
| Temporal | The time in which theatrical performance is received by its audience is the same time as that of its presentation… In all these respects, theatrical performance may be said to be a temporal art form.” |
| Spatial Arts | The area of discipline where students focus on the environmental aspect of 3-dimensional design in contemporary art practice. Space, form, material, colour, texture, light, scale and context all deliver content for such spatial art works. |
| Willing Suspension of Disbelief | The people in the audience know that what they are seeing on stage or screen is a pretend reality, but they are pretending that they do not know that. |
| Aesthetic Distance | The gap between a viewer's conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art. |
| The Fourth Wall | A conceptual barrier between those presenting some kind of a communication and those receiving it. The term originated in the theater, where it refers to the imaginary wall at the front of the stage separating the audience from the performers. |
| Collaboration | Involves a group of theatre makers (creators, designers, directors and performers) who work together practically to examine and develop ideas in order to generate theatrical material that is then structured and organized into a piece of theatre |
| Elements of Theatre | Performers, Audience, Director, Theater Space, Design Aspects (scenery, costume, lighting, and sound), Text (which includes focus, purpose, point of view |
| Proscenium | The frame or arch separating the stage from the auditorium, through which the action of a play is viewed. |
| Thrust | A stage that extends into the auditorium so that the audience is seated around three sides. |
| Arena | Theatre-in-the-round, also spelled theater-in-the-round, also called arena stage, central stage, or island stage, form of theatrical staging in which the acting area, which may be raised or at floor level, is completely surrounded by the audience |
| Alley / Traverse | A long and narrow with the audience sitting on either side, like a catwalk. As with theatre in the round, the audience can see each other, which helps to remind them that they are at the theatre and immerse them in the action on stage. |
| Black Box | The room is typically, but not always, painted black which gives the appearance of anyplace. This way it's easier to make the audience feel like they're actually in the location of the performance since these theatres have limited props. |
| Environmental | A branch of the New Theatre movement of the 1960s that aimed to heighten audience awareness of theatre by eliminating the distinction between the audience's and the actors' space. |
| Wings | The space offstage to the right or left of the acting area in a theatre. |
| Apron | The flat wide part of the Elizabethan stage projecting into the audience and used as the main acting area. |
| Greenroom | Where actors met before and after performances to entertain friends |
| FOH | A Front of House Manager (sometimes shortened to FOH Manager) is responsible for the day-to-day operation and management of the reception and seating area of a theatre. |
| Greek | Greek theatre is a form of performance art where a limited number of actors and a chorus conduct a tragedy or comedy based on the works of ancient playwrights. |
| Roman | Roman Theater included various forms of entertainment that the Roman citizens found entertaining. It included performances of dance, music, and reenactments of various stories |
| Choragus | The leader of a chorus or choir. broadly : the leader of any group or movement. : a leader of a dramatic chorus in ancient Greece. |
| Chorus | In drama and music, those who perform vocally in a group as opposed to those who perform singly. The chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. |
| Thespis | Thespis is said to have been the first ancient Greek performer to represent another character on stage instead of simply reciting or singing a text, and theatrical actors are now known as thespians. |
| Dionysia | This ancient theater was dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine making and ecstasy, whose festivals was the driving force behind the development of Greek theater. |
| Comedy | Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. |
| Tragedy | Serious drama typically a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force and having sorrowful or disastrous conclusion, elicits pity or terror the genre of tragic dramas a medieval narrative poem or tale typically describing the downfall of a grea |
| Satyr | Satyr play, genre of ancient Greek drama that preserves the structure and characters of tragedy while adopting a happy atmosphere and a rural background |
| Mechane | Device a crane that the Greeks used in their theatre mostly in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The "mechane" was composed of wooden beams and used a pulley system to pick up an actor into the air and elevate them above the stage to simulate flight. |
| Skene | Skene, (from Greek skēnē, “scene-building”), in ancient Greek theatre, a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted. |
| Pariaktoi | A simple device, the periaktos — or plural periaktoi — is a revolving, three-sided flat with a different scene painted on each side. It is basically a billboard stating, “Imagine we are here.” |
| Ekklyema | In classical Greek theatre, stage mechanism consisting of a low platform that rolled on wheels or revolved on an axis and could be pushed onstage to reveal an interior or some offstage scene such as a tableau. |
| Masks | Used almost universally to represent characters in theatrical performances. Theatrical performances are visual literature of a transient, momentary kind. It is most impressive because it can be seen as a reality; it expends itself by its very revelation. |
| Dominus | Leader of a Roman acting troupe. |
| Spectacle | Spectacle 1 of six components of tragedy, occupying the category of the mode of imitation. Spectacle includes all aspects of the tragedy that contribute to its sensory effects: costumes, scenery, the gestures of the actors, the sound of the music and the |
| Aristotle and Poetics | On these bases the Poetics was held to defend the imitative arts because they invite us to place ourselves in complex and nuanced moral situations and to discern behind them the moral laws and patterns at work. |
| Odeipus | Definitions of Oedipus Rex. (Greek mythology) a tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta; the subject of the drama `Oedipus Rex' by Sophocles. |
| Medieval Theatre | The Middle Ages, theatre began a new cycle of development that paralleled the emergence of the theatre from ritual activity in the early Greek period. Whereas the Greek theatre had grown out of Dionysian worship, the medieval theatre originated as an expr |
| Liturgical Drama | Liturgical drama, in the Middle Ages, type of play acted within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible and of the saints. Although they had their roots in the Christian liturgy, such plays were not performed as essential parts of a standar |
| Vernacular Drama | The practice is handed down through generations. Vernacular Theatre is made from local materials, by local people. It is often intergenerational. It uses specialists – writer, designer, technicians, director – but the stories are gathered by local people |
| Mystery | The mystery plays, usually representing biblical subjects, developed from plays presented in Latin by churchmen on church premises and depicted such subjects as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. |
| Cycle Plays | A phrase used by scholars of medieval theatre to refer to the sequences of episodes that dramatize the sweep of Christian salvation history from Creation to Judgement. |
| Morality Plays | Morality play, also called morality, an allegorical drama popular in Europe especially during the 15th and 16th centuries, in which the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral l |
| Mansions | A mansion consisted of a small booth containing a stage with corner posts supporting a canopy and decorated curtains and often a chair and props to be used by the actors in that scene. |
| Hellmouths | Medieval theatre often had a hellmouth prop or mechanical device which was used to attempt to scare the audience by vividly dramatizing an entrance to Hell. These seem often to have featured a battlemented castle entrance, in painting usually associated w |
| The role of the Church | The Catholic Church, offered a service. This service provided the dramatization of Biblical stories which were held on church premises. It was not until the 13th century that religious performances were beginning to be held outside of the church. |
| The Renaissance | English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, or (commonly) as Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1562 and 1642. This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe andBen Jonson |
| Commedia Dell’Arte | Commedia dell'arte is a theatrical form characterized by improvised dialogue and a cast of colorful stock characters that emerged in northern Italy in the fifteenth century and rapidly gained popularity throughout Europe. |
| Intermezzi | Intermezzo, (Italian: “interlude”) plural intermezzi or intermezzos, in music and theatre, an entertainment performed between the acts of a play; also a light instrumental composition |
| Neoclassicism | Neoclassicism (also spelled Neo-classicism) was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. |
| Verisimilitude | A film has verisimilitude if it seems realistic and the story has details, subjects, and characters that seem similar or true to real life, or mime convincing aspects of life in important or fundamental ways. |
| Unities | Unities, in drama, the three principles derived by French classicists from Aristotle's Poetics; they require a play to have a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. These principles were called, respective |
| Scenic innovation in Italy | The Italian Renaissance gave birth to many innovations in theater architecture and scene design, including the proscenium arch stage, painted-flat wings and shutters, and Torelli's mechanized pole-and-chariot system. In addition, the Italian Renaissance s |
| Perspective | Perspective scenery, in theatre, scenery and the scene design technique that represents three-dimensional space on a flat surface, creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance. |
| Pole & Chariot | When he perfected the chariot-and-pole system. According to this system, slots were cut in the stage floor to support uprights, on which flats were mounted. These poles were attached below the stage to chariots mounted on casters that ran in tracks parall |
| Groove system | System in which tracks on the stage floor and above the stage allowed for the smooth movement of flat wings onto and off the stage; usually there were a series of grooves at each stage position. |
| Elizabethan Drama | When Elizabeth came to the throne most of the plays on offer to the public were Miracle Plays, presenting in crude dialogue stories from the Bible and lives of the saints, and the Moralities, which taught lessons for the guidance of life through the means |
| Shakespeare | In Shakespeare's time, a stage wasn't just one type of space; plays had to be versatile. The same play might be produced in an outdoor playhouse, an indoor theater, a royal palace—or, for a company on tour, the courtyard of an inn. |
| Christopher Marlows | The Marlowe Theatre is a 1,200-seat theatre in Canterbury named after playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was born and attended school in the city. It was named a Stage Awards, 2022 UK Theatre of the Year. |
| Public Theatre | The main difference between private and public theatres in the English Renaissance was; private were indoor theatres |
| Private Theatres | Public were outdoor theatres |
| Repertory Theatres | Repertory theatre, system of play production in which a resident acting company keeps a repertory of plays that are always ready for performance, often presenting a different one each night of the week, supplemented by the preparation and rehearsal of new |
| Spain | The typical Spanish theater of the time was known as a corral, |
| Lope De Vega | The Lope de Vega Theatre (Spanish: Teatro Lope de Vega) is a small Baroque Revival theatre that was built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 in Seville, Spain, in the same building as the Exhibition Casino. |
| Corrales | Corrales were theatres created from the spaces in courtyards. The courtyard was lined by several-floored, covered galleries designated for a concrete type of society. The fourth side was occupied by a covered stage. |
| First Women Playwrights | come back. |
| French Neoclassicism | Neoclassical theatre observed a strict adherence to the unity of time, place, and action and also placed importance on decorum and verisimilitude (true to life) in playwriting. During the 16th and 17th centuries civil wars and unrest interrupted the devel |
| The English Restoration | Restoration theatre became a way to celebrate the end of Puritan rule, with its strict moral codes. To celebrate the opening of the theatres Restoration plays were lavish, often immoral by Puritan standards, and poked fun at both royalists and roundheads |
| Comedy of Manners | Comedy of manners, witty, cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts and often satirizes the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. A comedy of manners is concerned with social usage and the question of whether or not characters meet certa |
| Humor | come back. |
| Intrigue | Intrigue is defined a complicated or clandestine plot or scheme intended to effect some purpose by secret artifice; conspiracy; stratagem. It also refers the plot of a play, poem or romance; the series of complications in which a writer involves their ima |
| Licensing and the Lord Chamberlain | Under the Licensing Act 1737 (10 Geo. II, c. 28), the Lord Chamberlain was granted the ability to vet the performance of any new plays: he could prevent any new play, or any modification to an existing play, from being performed for any reason, and was no |
| Genres | The genre of a performance refers to the type of story being told, and the style refers to how the work is presented on stage. A genre or style can help to give performers a framework to shape the devised work. |
| Sentimental Comedy | Sentimental comedy, a dramatic genre of the 18th century, denoting plays in which middle-class protagonists triumphantly overcome a series of moral trials. Such comedy aimed at producing tears rather than laughter. |
| Bourgeois | A cultural phenomenon which emerged during the rise of the European bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century. In the twentieth century the term has often been applied in a more pejorative manner to dominant forms of theatre culture in capitalist contexts. |
| Domestic Tragedy | Domestic tragedy, drama in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or lower-class individuals, in contrast to classical and Neoclassical tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or aristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair |
| Ballad Opera | Ballad opera, characteristic English type of comic opera, originating in the 18th century and featuring farcical or extravaganza plots. The music was mainly confined to songs interspersed in spoken dialogue. |
| Romanticism | The predominant theatrical artistic movement from the late eighteenth century onwards, was Romanticism. This style of theatre focused on the individual actor's imagination, emotion and appreciation of nature. |
| Melodrama | Melodrama, in Western theatre, sentimental drama with an improbable plot that concerns the vicissitudes suffered by the virtuous at the hands of the villainous but ends happily with virtue triumphant. |
| David Garrick | The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, named after the stage actor David Garrick |
| Bombastic | Marked by or given to speech or writing that is given exaggerated importance by artificial or empty means : marked by or given to bombast : pompous, overblown. bombastically. |
| Realism | In the theatre, Realism is a technical development instead of that of reality. The Realist tended to create an illusion of reality on stage by using realistic settings, costumes, colloquial language and realistic dialogue. |
| Naturalism | Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. |
| Non-realism | In drama, nonrealism is abstract, disconnected, and does not conform to everyday life. ex. events that occur only in imagination, arbitrary use of time and place, or talking animals. |
| Symbolism | Symbolism in art implied a higher, more spiritual existence and aimed to express emotional experiences by visual means. In the theatre, symbolism was considered to be a reaction against the plays that embodied naturalism and realism at the turn of the 20t |
| Expressionism | In theatre, expressionism is a movement in which the aim is to express the inner emotions and experiences of the character, rather than to simply present a realistic portrayal. This style of theatre emerged in the early 20th century, and was particularly |
| Futurism | Futurist theatre also played an important role within the movement and is distinguished by scenes that are only a few sentences long, an emphasis on nonsensical humour, and attempts to examine and subvert traditions of theatre via parody and other techniq |
| Surrealism | Surrealist cinema is a modernist approach to film theory, criticism, and production with origins in Paris in the 1920s. The movement used shocking, irrational, or absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism to challenge the traditional function of art to |
| Theatre of the Absurd | Theater in which standard or naturalistic conventions of plot, characterization, and thematic structure are ignored or distorted in order to convey the irrational or fictive nature of reality and the essential isolation of humanity in a meaningless world. |
| Existentialism | Existentialism in theatre is a movement that emphasizes the existence of the individual self and the subjective experience of life. It is a philosophical and psychological approach that emphasizes the individual's freedom to choose and responsibility for |
| The American Musical Theatre | Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects o |
| The Golden Age | The Golden Age of Theatre in England is generally regarded as being that period from around 1870 through until approximately 1920 (the years suggested being only very approximate and subject to some interpretation). |
| Aesthetic Distance | Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer's conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art. |
| Alley Theatre (traverse) | A traverse stage is long and narrow with the audience sitting on either side, like a catwalk. As with theatre in the round, the audience can see each other, which helps to remind them that they are at the theatre and immerse them in the action on stage. |
| Amphitheatre | An oval or circular building with rising tiers of seats ranged about an open space and used in ancient Rome especially for contests and spectacles. : a very large auditorium. |
| Arena | A theater stage surrounded or nearly surrounded by the audience. |
| Ballad Opera | Ballad opera, characteristic English type of comic opera, originating in the 18th century and featuring farcical or extravaganza plots. The music was mainly confined to songs interspersed in spoken dialogue. |
| Black Box | The name “black box” comes from the fact that the room is typically, but not always, painted black which gives the appearance of anyplace. This way it's easier to make the audience feel like they're actually in the location of the performance since these |
| Bourgeois Tragedy | Bourgeois tragedy (German: Bürgerliches Trauerspiel) is a form of tragedy that developed in 18th-century Europe. It is a fruit of the enlightenment and the emergence of the bourgeois class and its ideals. It is characterized by the fact that its protagoni |
| Burlesque | Burlesque show, stage entertainment, developed in the United States, that came to be designed for exclusively male patronage, compounded of slapstick sketches, dirty jokes, chorus numbers, and solo dances usually billed as “daring,” or “sensational,” in t |
| Choregus | Choragus, also spelled Choregus, or Choragos, plural Choragi, Choregi, or Choragoi, in ancient Greek theatre, any wealthy Athenian citizen who paid the costs of theatrical productions at festivals during the 4th and 5th centuries bc. |
| Chorus | Chorus, in drama and music, those who perform vocally in a group as opposed to those who perform singly. The chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. |
| Dionysia | This ancient theater was dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine making and ecstasy, whose festivals was the driving force behind the development of Greek theater. Probably established in the late 6th century, the theater has been reconstructed many times |
| Climactic | The climax of a story or play is the most gripping point in the plot. It is often the point at which the protagonist realizes what must be done to resolve the problem in the story. In climactic plot structure, the rising action, or events leading up to th |
| Dramatic structure | The structure is how the plot or story of a play is laid out, including a beginning, a middle and an end. Plays may also include subplots , which are smaller stories that allow the audience to follow the journey of different characters and events within t |
| Climax | In the structure of a play the climax, or crisis, is the decisive moment, or turning point, at which the rising action of the play is reversed to falling action. It may or may not coincide with the highest point of interest in the drama. |
| Comedia Dell’Arte | Commedia dell'arte is a theatrical form characterized by improvised dialogue and a cast of colorful stock characters that emerged in northern Italy in the fifteenth century and rapidly gained popularity throughout Europe. |
| Comedy | A dramedy is a movie or program that balances the elements of a drama and a comedy. Also known as a comedy drama, this hybrid genre often deals with real life situations, grounded characters, and believable situations |
| Comedy of Manners | Comedy of manners, witty, cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts and often satirizes the manners and affectations of a contemporary society. A comedy of manners is concerned with social usage and the question of whether or not characters meet certa |
| Community Theatre | Community theatre, also known as amateur theatre, is defined as theatre that is performed by amateur actors and singers. It is distinct from professional theatre because actors are not paid and the productions are usually done as a social and artistic act |
| Conflict | Conflict generally occurs when a character cannot achieve an objective due to an obstacle. This obstacle may be internal or external – between characters or between characters and their environment. Conflict can be shown in a variety of ways, for example |
| Corral | Corrales were theatres created from the spaces in courtyards. The courtyard was lined by several-floored, covered galleries designated for a concrete type of society. The fourth side was occupied by a covered stage. |
| Departures from Realism | Why did we depart from Realism? Although Realism impacted contemporary theatre (as well as film and television) substantially, it is usually seen as having major limitations. It excludes many useful theatrical devices such as music, dance, symbolism, poet |
| Dues ex Machina | Deus ex Machina is now the phrase used to describe any situation where something unexpected or implausible is brought in to the story line to resolve situations or disentangle a plot. The resolution could come from a new character, device, or event. |
| Director | As the primary visionary and unifying force behind a theatrical production, the director is responsible for shaping every aspect of the final performance—from the actors' performances to the setting and design choices. |
| Domestic Tragedy | Domestic tragedy, drama in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or lower-class individuals, in contrast to classical and Neoclassical tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or aristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair |
| Dominus | Lead actor and producer of Roman theatre troop |
| Downstage | The part of a stage that is nearest the audience or camera. |
| Dramaturg | Also Called. Literary Manager. Dramaturgs are a behind-the-scenes resource for directors, actors, and playwrights, providing context, research, and feedback to help improve the quality or accuracy of a production. |
| Environmental Theatre | Environmental theatre, a branch of the New Theatre movement of the 1960s that aimed to heighten audience awareness of theatre by eliminating the distinction between the audience's and the actors' space. |
| Existentialism | Environmental theatre, a branch of the New Theatre movement of the 1960s that aimed to heighten audience awareness of theatre by eliminating the distinction between the audience's and the actors' space. |
| Exposition | The first part is the exposition, which is the part of the play where the audience learns about the setting, the characters, and any background information they might need to understand the conflict. |
| Expressionism | In theatre, expressionism is a movement in which the aim is to express the inner emotions and experiences of the character, rather than to simply present a realistic portrayal. This style of theatre emerged in the early 20th century, and was particularly |
| Farce | Farce is a type of comedy that places exaggerated characters in improbable situations where they face a number of outrageous obstacles. Farces have been around since the early days of western theatre, when the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote h |
| Fourth Wall | The fourth wall is a conceptual barrier between those presenting some kind of a communication and those receiving it. The term originated in the theater, where it refers to the imaginary wall at the front of the stage separating the audience from the perf |
| Front of House | Front of house describes the parts of the theatre that the audience has access to. Audiences enter a theatre via a foyer. The foyer contains a box office where tickets may be purchased or collected. |
| Genre | The genre of a performance refers to the type of story being told, and the style refers to how the work is presented on stage. A genre or style can help to give performers a framework to shape the devised work. |
| Hubris | Hubris, in Greek tragedy, is the excessive pride towards or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis. The overbearing pride leads humans to follow paths or projects which lead to certain self-destruction. In Greek drama hubris is more or less followed by |
| Immersive Theatre | The definition of immersive theatre states 'Immersive theatre is a presentational or theatrical form or work that breaks the “fourth wall” that traditionally separates the performer from the audience both physically and verbally'. |
| Liturgical Drama | Liturgical drama, in the Middle Ages, type of play acted within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible and of the saints. Although they had their roots in the Christian liturgy, such plays were not performed as essential parts of a standar |
| Mansions | A mansion consisted of a small booth containing a stage with corner posts supporting a canopy and decorated curtains and often a chair and props to be used by the actors in that scene. |
| Morality Plays | Morality play, also called morality, an allegorical drama popular in Europe especially during the 15th and 16th centuries, in which the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral l |
| Mystery Plays | The mystery plays, usually representing biblical subjects, developed from plays presented in Latin by churchmen on church premises and depicted such subjects as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. |
| Naturalism | Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. |
| Neoclassical Ideals | Neoclassical theatre observed a strict adherence to the unity of time, place, and action and also placed importance on decorum and verisimilitude (true to life) in playwriting. |
| Nonmediated | Theatre that is not observed through an electronic medium. |
| Non realism | In drama, nonrealism is abstract, disconnected, and does not conform to everyday life. ex. events that occur only in imagination, arbitrary use of time and place, or talking animals. |
| Orchestra | The front part of the main floor of a theater |
| Persepective | Scenery and the scene design technique that represents three-dimensional space on a flat surface, creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance. |
| Plot | PLOT The arrangement of events or incidents on the stage. differentiated from Story which is a chronological detailing of events that happened on and off stage. Events happening off stage are introduced through exposition (narrative dialogue). |
| Pole and Charriot | According to this system, slots were cut in the stage floor to support uprights, on which flats were mounted. These poles were attached below the stage to chariots mounted on casters that ran in tracks parallel to the front of the stage. |
| Proscenium | Proscenium, in theatre, the frame or arch separating the stage from the auditorium, through which the action of a play is viewed. |
| Protagonist | The protagonist is the character who drives the action--the character whose fate matters most. In other words, they are involved in —and often central to—the plot or conflict of the story, but are also usually the emotional heart of the narrative. |
| Rake | First, the jargon: a raked stage is one that rises in elevation as an actor moves from the edge of the stage away from the audience. In other words, from downstage to literally up stage. |
| Realism | In the theatre, Realism is a technical development instead of that of reality. The Realist tended to create an illusion of reality on stage by using realistic settings, costumes, colloquial language and realistic dialogue. |
| Regional Theatres | A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term regional theater most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. |
| Romanticism | The predominant theatrical artistic movement from the late eighteenth century onwards, was Romanticism. This style of theatre focused on the individual actor's imagination, emotion and appreciation of nature. |
| Satire | Satire, artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an int |
| Satyr | Satyr play, genre of ancient Greek drama that preserves the structure and characters of tragedy while adopting a happy atmosphere and a rural background. |
| Scaena | Building behind the stage, the scaenae frons, was used both as the back scene and as the actors' dressing room. It was no longer painted in the Greek manner but tended to have architectural decorations combined with luxurious ornamentation. |
| Script | A script, which is an adjustment of the story for the purposes of stage performance, contains information about how the actor is to carry himself on stage, speak, dress, etc. Each of these fillers can be an interpretation. |
| Sharing Plan | come back. |
| Skene | Skene, (from Greek skēnē, “scene-building”), in ancient Greek theatre, a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted. |
| Spatial Arts | Spatial Art. Art forms that exist in space and are created to last overtime |
| Temporal Arts | Temporal art. art forms that exist only for a specific period of time. Script/text |
| Stage Left | On the left side of a stage from the point of view of a performer facing the audience |
| Stage Right | On the right side of a stage from the point of view of a performer facing the audience. |
| Surrealism | The principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations. |
| Symbolism | Symbolism in art implied a higher, more spiritual existence and aimed to express emotional experiences by visual means. In the theatre, symbolism was considered to be a reaction against the plays that embodied naturalism and realism at the turn of the 20t |
| Theatre Etiquette | Theatre etiquette is how you behave in the drama classroom or in a rehearsal in order to get along and be a good person in the theatrical world. |
| Theatre of the Absurd | Drama using the abandonment of conventional dramatic form to portray the futility of human struggle in a senseless world. Major exponents include Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, and Harold Pinter. |
| Thespian | Actors and actresses are called thespians in honor of Thespis, a Greek playwright and performer |
| Thrust stage | A stage that projects beyond the proscenium so that the audience sits around the projection. also : a forestage that is extended into the auditorium to increase the stage area. |
| Tragedy | Tragedy, branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual |
| Tragicomedy | A play that blends elements of both tragedy and comedy is known as a tragicomedy. The remarkable thing about a tragicomedy is that it can make you laugh and cry. A tragicomedy might be a serious drama interspersed with funny moments that periodically ligh |
| Unities | Unities, in drama, the three principles derived by French classicists from Aristotle's Poetics; they require a play to have a single action represented as occurring in a single place and within the course of a day. These principles were called, respective |
| Upstage | Upstage (comparative more upstage, superlative most upstage) Toward or at the rear of a theatrical stage. The actor turned and walked upstage. Away from the audience or camera. |
| Downstage | The part of a stage that is nearest the audience or camera. |
| Vernacular Drama | Vernacular Theatre is made from local materials, by local people. It is often intergenerational. It uses specialists – writer, designer, technicians, director – but the stories are gathered by local people and performed by them. |
| Willing Suspension of Disbelief | The people in the audience know that what they are seeing on stage or screen is a pretend reality, but they are pretending that they do not know that. They accept the given premises of the story being told in order to empathize with the actors |
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rileyfields2001