Stage Directions
The middle section of the stage
What is center stage?
Staging in the center of a room with the audience sitting on all four sides of the playing area; sometimes called theatre in the round.
What is an Arena Stage?
Narrow, vertical stage curtains used for masking in the wings.
What are the Legs?
Person who writes and develops the script.
What is the Playwight?
The songs and instrumental music of a musical, in printed or recorded form.
What is the Score?
The acting area closest to the audience
What is down stage (DS)?
A stage that juts out into the audience area, with the audience usually sitting around its three sides.
What is a Thrust Stage?
The areas on either side of the stage where actors and scenery wait to enter.
What is the wings?
A person who portrays a character in a performance.
What is an actor?
Drawing the audience’s attention to yourself when it should be focused on another character.
What is upstaging?
The curved stage floor between the front edge of the stage and the front curtain/proscenium arch.
What is the apron?
Imaginary lines indicating visibility of stage areas from different points in the house
What are Sightlines?
An approach that calls on the actor to use personal experience and sense memory to develop a character.
What is method acting?
Person who assists the director during rehearsals and manages all backstage activity once the play has opened and calls the cues.
What is the Stage manager?
A form of theatre in which actors read aloud from a script – sometimes sat, sometimes on the feet.
What is a rehearsed reading?
The acting area of the stage that is on the highest part of the rake
What is upstage?
A stage with a permanent framed opening through which the audience sees the play.
What is a proscenium arch stage?
Items handled by actor’s such as books, ornaments, a broom, a glass, glasses, a suitcase etc.
What are props?
The person responsible for interpreting the script, creating a viable production concept, and vision for the actors.
What is the director?
Having a part memorized so that a script is no longer needed.
What is being off-book?
The words that typically appear in italics and parenthesis in a script and tell actors what to do
What are stage directions?
Taking down the set following the conclusion of a production run.
What is the Strike?
A book (usually in a 3-ring binder) that contains the script with the director’s ideas and blocking notations.
What is the Prompt Book?
Person who selects the script, finds the financial backing and hires all production personnel.
What is the Producer?
A specific reason for saying or doing something for an actor.
What is character motivation?