Ancient Greece
The annual festival in Athens where playwrights competed
What is "The City Dionysia?"
The first stage of Freytag’s Pyramid
What is exposition?
The meaning of the word “Renaissance”
The subject matter of realist plays
What is everyday life?
Expressionism focuses on this kind of truth
What is inner emotional or psychological truth?
A major innovation the Greeks contributed to theatre
What is (either) amphitheatre architecture, formalized genres, named playwrights, civic institution, or the "well made play"?
The event that triggers the main action of a play
What is the inciting event?
The monarch whose reign supported the arts and stabilized English theatre
Who is Queen Elizabeth I?
The playwright known as the “Father of Modern Drama”
Who is Henrik Ibsen?
The key figure associated with Epic Theatre
Who is Bertolt Brecht?
The group of performers in Greek plays that represented the community’s moral & emotional response
What is the chorus?
The moment of greatest emotional tension or the turning point of a play
What is the climax?
The birthplace of the Renaissance
What is Florence, Italy?
One of the many defining characteristics of realist theatre
What is...(possible answers): lifelike dialogue; ordinary settings; focus on middle-class characters; plausible motivation; social critique; subversion of neat endings.
The technique of didacticism that prevents emotional immersion and promotes critical thinking
What is the alienation effect?
A major innovation of Greek amphitheaters like the Theatre of Epidaurus
What are acoustics?
The nurses monologue in Medea represents this part of Freytag's pyramid
Shakespeare's technique of breaking the fourth wall
What is soliloquy?
The forms of theatre that Realism was reacting against
What is Neoclassicism or Romanticism?
The absurdist playwright whose work is known for circular action and failed communication
Who is Samuel Beckett?
The process of regulating theatre as a civic event with public funding, competitions, and community significance.
What is the institutionalization of theatre?
The name for a tightly plotted drama with logical cause-and-effect action, withheld secrets, climactic reversals, and a clear resolution (hint: it's what the anti-realists resisted).
What is the "well made play"?
In Richard III, Richard is portrayed as evil to justify the Tudor (Elizabethan) lineage because the play is a form of this.
What is (Tudor) propaganda?
The set design and action of A Doll's House represents this aspect of Nora's existence
What is (possible answers): Nora being trapped; Nora being a caged bird; Ibsen's critique of gender dynamics?
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to ______ it.”
What is "shape it"?