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Theatre

Terms

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AGON
[Greek Old Comedy] A scene with a debate between the two opposing forces in a play.
AMPHITHEATER
Large oval, circular, or semi-circular outdoor theatre with rising tiers of seats around an open playing are; also, an exceptionally large indoor auditorium.
CHOREGUS
Wealthy person who financed a playwright's works at an ancient Greek dramatic festival.
CHORUS
[Ancient Greek Drama] A group of performers who sing and dance, sometimes participating in the action but usually simply commenting on it. In modern times, performers in a musical play who sing and dance as a group.
CITY DIONYSIA
The most important Greek festival in honor of the god Dionysus, and the first to include drama.
DOMINUS
Leader of a Roman acting troupe.
NEW COMEDY
Hellenistic Greek and Roman comedies that deal with romantic and domestic situations.
OLD COMEDY
Classical Greek comedy that pokes fun at social, political, or cultural conditions and at particular figures.
ORCHESTRA
A circular playing space in ancient Greek theaters; in modern times, the ground-floor seating in a theater auditorium.
PANTOMIME
Originally a Roman entertainment in which a narrative was sung by a chorus while the story was acted out by dancers. Now used loosely to cover any form of presentation that relies on dance, gesture, and physical movement without dialogue or speech.
PARABASIS
Scene in classical Greek Old Comedy in which the chorus directly addresses the audience members and makes fun of them.
PARODOS
In classical Greek drama, the scene in which the chorus enters. Also, the entranceway for the chorus in Greek theatre.
SATYR PLAY
One of the three types of classical Greek drama, usually a ribald takeoff on Greek mythology and history that included a chorus of satyrs, mythological creatures who were half-man and half-goat. On festival days in Athens, it was presented as the final play following three tragedies.
SCAENA
Stage house in a Roman theater.
THEATRON
Where the audience sat in an ancient Greek theater.
THESPIAN
Synonym for "performer"; from Thespis, who is said to have been the first actor in ancient Greek theater.
TRILOGY
In classical Greece, three tragedies written by the same playwright and presented on a single day; they were connected by a story or thematic concerns.
BUNRAKU
Japanese puppet theater.
HANAMICHI
In kabuki theater, a bridge running from behind the audience (toward the left side of the audience) to the stage. Performers can enter on the hanamichi; important scenes may also be played on it.
HASHIGAKARI
Bridge in no theater on which the performers make their entrance from the dressing area to the platform stage.
KABUKI
Form of popular Japanese theater combining music, dance, and dramatic scenes.
KATHAKALI
Traditional dance-drama of India.
LITURGICAL DRAMA
Early medieval church drama, written in Latina and dealing with biblical stories.
MANSIONS
Individual scenic units used for the staging of religious dramas in the Middle Ages.
MORALITY PLAY
Medieval drama designed to teach a lesson. The characters were often allegorical and represented virtues or faults.
MYSTERY PLAYS
Also called cycle plays. Short dramas of the Middle Ages based on events of the Old and New Testaments and often organized into historical cycles.
NO
Rigidly traditional form of Japanese drama combinging music, dance, and lyrics.
PAGEANT MASTER
During the Middle Ages, one who supervised the mounting of mystery plays.
PEKING (BEIJING)
Popular theater (Opera) of China that developed in the ninteenth century.
PLATFORM STAGE
Elevated stage with no proscenium.
SHADOW PLAY
A play performed widely in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia involving intricately carved flat leather puppets that create patters of light and shadow when their image is projected on a screen.
WERNACULAR DRAMA
Drama from the Middle Ages performed in the everyday speech of the people and presented in town squares or other parts of cities.
WAGON STAGE
Low platform mounted on wheels or casters by means of which scenery is moved on- and offstage.
APPRENTICE
Young performer training in an Elizabethan acting company.
BOX
Small private compartment for a group of spectators built into the walls of traditional proscenium-arch and other theaters.
CAZUELA
Gallery above the tavern in the back wall of the theaters of the Spanish golden age; the area where unescorted women sat.
COMEDIA
Full-length (three act) nonreligious play of the Spanish golden age.
COMPAÑÍAS DE PARTE
Acting troupes in the Spanish golden age, organized according to a sharing system.
CORRAL
Theater of the Spanish golden age, usually located in the courtyard of a series of adjoining buildings.
GALLER
In theater buildings, the undivided seating area cut into the walls of the building.
GROOVE SYSTEM
System in which tracks on te stage floor and above the stage allowed for the smooth movement of flat wings onto and off the stae; usually there were a series of grooves at each stage position.
HIRELING
Member of an Elizabethan acting troupe who was paid a set salary and was not a shareholder.
LAZZI
Comic pieces of business used repeatedly by chracters in Italian commedia dell'arte.
MASQUE
Lavish, spectacular court entertainment primarily during the late English Renaissance.
NEOCLASSICAL IDEALS
Rules developed by critics during the Italian Renaissance, supposedly based on the writings of Aristotle.
PATIO
In the theater of the Spanish golden age, the pit area for the audience.
PERSPECTIVE
Illusion of depth in painting, introduced into scene design during the Italian Renaissance.
PIT
Floor of the house in Renaissance theaters. It was originally a standing area; by the end of the eighteenth century, backless benches were added in most countries.
PLOT
The sequence and patterned arrangement of events in a drama, with incidents selected and arranged for maximum dramatic impact.
POLE AND CHARIOT
Giacomo Torelli's mechanized means of changing sets made up of flat wings.
PRIVATE THEATERS
Indoor theaters in Elizabethan England.
PUBLIC THEATERS
Outdoor theaters in Elizabethan England.
SHAREHOLDERS
In Elizabethan acting troupes, members who received part of the profits as payment.
SIDES
Script containing only a single performer's lines and cues. Elizabethan actors learned their roles from sides.
SLAPSTICK
A type of comedy of comic business that relies on exaggerated or ludicrous physical activity for its humor.
SOLILOQUY
Speech in which a character who is alone onstage speaks inner thoughts.
TIRING HOUSE
Elizabethan stage house.
UNITIES
Term referring to the preference that a play's lot occur within one day (unity of time), in one place (unity of place), and with no action irrelevant to the plot (unity of action).
YARD PIT
(Standing Area) In Elizabethan public theaters.
ZANNI
Comic male servants in Italian commedia dell'arte.
BALLAD OPERA
Eighteenth-century English form that burlesqued opera.
BOX SET
Interior setting using flats to form the back and side walls and often the ceiling of a room.
COMEDY OF MANNERS
Form of comic drama that became popular in seventeenth-century France and the English Resoration, emphasizing a cultivated or sophisticated atmosphere and witty dialogue.
DRAME
Eighteenth-century French term usually denoting a serious drama that dealt with middle-class characters.
EXPOSITION
Imparting of information necessary for an understanding of the story but not covered by the action onstage; events or knowledge from the past, or occurring outside the play, which must be introduced so that the audience will understand the characters or plot.
GESAMTKUNSTWERK
Richard Wagner's theaory of a unified work of theatrical art.
MELODRAMA
Dramatic form, made popular in the nineteenth century, which emphasized action and spectacular effects and also used music; it had stock characters and clearly defined villains and heroes.
MINSTREL SHOW
Type of nineteenth-century production featuring white performers made up in blackface.
RÉGISSEUR
Continental European term for a theater director; it often denotes a dictatorial director.
REPERTORY, REPERTOIRE
Acting company that at any given time can perform a number of plays alternately; also, the plays regularly performed by the company.
ROMANTICISM
Movement of the nineteenth century that sought to free the artist from rules and considered unfettered inspiration the source of all creativity.
STORM AND STRESS
Antineoclassical eighteenth-century German movement that was a forerunner of romanticism; in German, Sturm und Drang.
WELL-MADE PLAY
Dramatic form popular in the ninteenth century and early twentieth century that combined apparent plausibility of incident and surface realism with a tightly constructed plot.
ALIENATION
Bertolt Brecht's theory that, in his epic theater, audiences' emotional involvement should be minimized to increase their intellectual involvement with the political message.
BIOMECHANICS
Meyerhold's theory that a performer's body should be machinelike and that emotion could be represented externally.
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Post-World War I scene-design movement in which sets--frequently composed of ramps, platforms, and levels--were nonrealistic and were intended to provide greater opportunities for physical action.
DADA
Movement in art between the world wars, based on presenting the irrational and attacking traditional artistic values.
EPIC THEATER
Form of episodic drama associated with Bertolt Brecht and aimed at the intellect rather than the emotions.
EXPRESSIONISM
Movement in Germany at about the time of World War I, characterized by an attempt to dramatize subjective states through distortion; striking, often grotesque images; and lyric, unrealistic dialogue.
FUTURISM
Art movement, begun in Italy about 1909, which idealized mechanization and machinery.
NATURALISM
Special form of realism developed in Europe in the late nineteenth century; it was not carefully plotted or constructed but was meant to present a "slice of life."
STANISLAVSKI SYSTEM
Konstantin Stanislavski's techniques and theories about acting, which promote a naturalistic style stressing (among other things) "inner truth" as opposed to conventional theatricality.
SURREALISM
Departure from realism that attempted to present dramatically the working of the subconscious.
SYMBOLISM
Movement of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century that sought to express inner truth rather than represent life realistically.
THEATER OF CRUELTY
Antonin Artaud's visionary concept of a theater based on magic and ritual, which would liberate deep, violent, and erotic impulses.
THEATRICALISM
Exposing the elements of theater to make the audience members aware that they are watching theater.
UNIT SET
Single setting that can represent a variety of locales with the simple addition of properties or scenic elements.
BOOK
Spoken (as opposed to sung) portion of the text of a musical play.
BURLESQUE
Satire of a serious form of literature.
ENVIRONMENTAL THEATER
Brance of avantgarde theater stressing the environment in which a performance takes place.
EXISTENTIALISM
Term applied to plays illustrating a philosophy whose modern advocate was Jean-Paul Sartre and which holds that there are no longer any fixed standards or values.
HAPPENING
Nonliterary or unscripted theatrical event using a scenario that allows for chance occurrances.
MULTIMEDIA
Use of electronic media, such as slides, film, and videotape, in live theatrical presentations.
MUSICAL THEATER BROAD
Broad category that includes opera, operetta, musical comedy, and other musical plays (sometimes called lyric theater).
POOR THEATER
Term coined by Jerzy Grotowski to describe his theater, which was stripped to the bare essentials.
PERFORMANCE ART
Experimental theater that initially incorporated elements of dance and the visual arts. Since performance art often is based on the vision of an individual performer or director rather than a playwright, the autobiographical monologue has become a popular performance art form.
POSTMODERNISM
A contemporary concept suggesting that artists and audiences have gone beyond the modernist movements of realism and the various departures from realism.
AVANT-GARDE THEATER
Experimental theater that breaks away from the traditional mainstream.
OFF-LOOP THEATER
In Chicago, theater that is presented outside the city's downtown commercial section.
TRADITIONAL THEATER
Theater that presents works in an understandable, logical, recognizable style.

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