Basics of Performance
What is Pantomime?
Area of the stage located at the back away from the audience.
What is Upstage?
This type of play includes fantasies and exaggerated situations that do not reflect real life scenarios.
What is a Nonrealistic Play?
The story of the play or the progression of the main character
What is Plot?
The offstage areas to the left and the right.
What are the Wings?
The number 1 fear of Americans.
What is Stage Fright?
A movement from one stage area to another.
What is a Cross?
This stands in the way of a character getting what they want.
What is an Obstacle?
A series of tryouts for actors to be cast in a show.
What is Auditions?
Wooden frames covered with fabric or wood that are used to create walls or backdrops.
What are Flats?
A form of theatre where performers make up characters, story, and dialogue in the moment without the use of scripts.
What is Improvisation?
Used to "give focus" to another actor; showing the audience where to look.
What is a 3/4 turn?
Triggers for the actor to say or do something; can be either another actor or a technical element.
What is a Cue?
The planned movement and arrangement of the actors onstage and from one scene to the next.
What is Blocking?
Samples of fabrics that are used in the design process to see how the costumes will interact with other technical elements.
What are Swatches?
An Italian form of theatre derived from pantomime and improvisation.
What is Commedia dell'arte?
A flat muscle that separates the chest from the abdominal cavity.
What is the Diaphragm?
This type of play follows a protagonist at odds with a problem or opposing force that eventually ends in defeat or death.
What is Greek Tragedy?
This person is in charge of researching the play, leading actors in the rehearsal process, and ensuring the production team work towards his/her artistic vision for the production.
What is a Director?
A type of stage were the audience sits on three sides of the playing space.
What is a Thrust Stage?
A Russian actor, director, teacher, and author best known for creating a system of acting called the Stanislavski System.
Who is Konstantin Stanislavski?
West African storytellers that served as keepers of their community's oral tradition and history.
What are Griots?
A social drama written by American playwright Arthur Miller in 1949.
What is Death of a Salesman?
He defined the six basic elements of drama in his text the Poetics.
Who is Aristotle?
A type of spotlight that casts soft-edged, evenly diffused pools of light; the lens used in these instruments were originally designed for lighthouses.
What is a Fresnel?