Rehearsal
Type of theater (usually used for experimental theatre) where the stage & audience positions can be changed
Black Box
when actors build a character's behavior through specific, concrete, performable actions
Stage actions
a system when actors portray emotions on stage by putting themselves in the place of the character
Stanislavski method
named after the Father of Greek Tragedy in Athens in 534 B.C.
Thespian
a name for a character that represents a category of characters
Archetype
the recollection of past experiences in an actor's life in order to recreate genuine emotion on stage.
Affective memory
rewrite a theatrical production into a work otherwise not written for the stage
Dramatization
Aspects of character that are beyond the character’s or actor’s control
Given Circumstances
practices of set, costume & lighting design & their relationship to the audience
Scenography
A place in the plot where a character achieves the opposite of his aim
Reversal
process of making each: event, person, detail & place as exact as possible, to explore their relevance to the character.
Particularization
when a play makes us care about the characters and their story. To be in the shoes of the characters and their struggles
Empathy
The actor tries to answer the question, “If this were real, how would I react?”
Magic "IF"
A german playwright who wanted to make the audience think, used a range of devices/tropes
Bertolt Brecht
Items that can be seen, described imaginatively, not literally
Visual Metaaphor
Dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience (in character or out)
Aside
distancing the audience through reminders of the artificiality of the theatrical performance
Alienation
the rephrasing of the actor’s objective in the active & specific form of a question that needs to be answered in the scene
Driving Question
1950’s playwrights created works representing the universe as unknowable & humankind’s existence as meaningless.
Theatre of the absurd
a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary
Chekhov's Gun
an item-by-item sequence of events that will happen within a show
Rundown
any experience of emotional release or cleansing brought about by a work of art
Catharsis
When the actor does not focus on themselves and instead concentrate on the others in the environment
Meisner Technique
American actor, director, acting coach; In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio
Lee Strasberg
when an actor uses memory, and their past to drive an action by recollection thoughts.
Suspension of disbelief