Playwriting
This term for when opposing forces are at a crucial moment in a play sounds like trouble, but it can be good or bad.
What is a crisis?
This is the idea that once events have been set in motion, there's no turning back. Oedipus was doomed all along.
What is tragic irretrievability?
This state serves as the title and setting for what is considered the first known musical.
What is Oklahoma?
This drawing of the set, seen from the audience's point of view, is always done in color--unless the set is meant to be done in black and white!
What is a rendering?
To create a dress from an historical era, a costumer designer would need to research this element of design.
What is line or silhouette?
Over, under, around, or through--this is something a character has to overcome within a play.
What is an obstacle?
Daffy Duck's bill spinning around his head after getting shot in the face is an example of this characteristic of comedy.
What is suspension of natural law?
Known for incorporating spoken dialogue into operas, Gilbert & Sullivan are known for creating this type of production.
What are Savoy operas?
This item only exists if it is used by an actor; otherwise, it's just considered set dressing.
What is a prop?
This costume design element is also known as the designer medium.
What is fabric?
This is the arrangement of scenes in a play; a rose in any other order might not smell as sweet.
What is a plot?
"I said Dad has passed away... He's passed away!... Dad is gone!... Dad's dead!... He's dead!... NO, *DEAD!*... *DEAAAAAAD!*... He's fine, he sends his love!" was used as an example for this type of serious drama.
What is domestic drama?
These types of musicals--ones that incorporate previously existing songs around which a story is written--are often commercially, but not artistically, successful.
What are jukebox musicals?
This person is responsible for scheduling, building, and installing a set design.
Who is the technical director?
On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to make a character's leather coat look worn, costume designers laid it in a parking lot and drove over it for an hour, an example of this technique of costume design.
What is distressing?
In English class, we might call it the denouement; in theatre, we call the most significant moment of a play this.
What is the climax?
This type of comedy is characterized by intellectual and moral content, and pokes fun at human foolishness. Totino's pizza rolls, anyone?
What is satire?
Having taken an informal class on musical theatre from Oscar Hammerstein, this man became known as the father of modern day musicals.
Who is Stephen Sondheim?
To make Peter Pan fly, your stage would need this area above it.
What is the fly loft?
Should a designer require assistance creating costumes, they might hire assistants for help, otherwise known as these.
What are stitchers?
The word "drama" comes from the Greek word "dran," meaning this.
What is "to do" or "to act"?
Puns, epigrams, and malaprops are tools used in this technique of comedy.
What is verbal humor?
Considered the Michael Jackson of his day, Al Jolson committed this act that we now know is a big no-no.
What is performing in blackface?
It doesn't take a cad to produce a set design on CAD, which is an acronym for this program.
What is Computer Assisted Design?
A production's budget would prefer if a costume designer could do this, instead of creating a costume from scratch.
What is pull?