From the Stage to the Screen
Let's Get Technical
Shakespeare's Plays
Vocabulary
People in Theatre
Superstitions
200
This musical-turned-movie is set in the 1950s and features catchy songs like "Summer Nights" and "We Go Together".
What is Grease?
200
Broadway Flat
200
This is one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies where both halves of a tragic couple die in the end after their families try to keep them apart.
What is Romeo and Juliet?
200
This is an imaginary thing that separates the actors from the audience.
What is the fourth wall?
200
This is the crew member who helps actors with costumes and quick changes.
What is a dresser?
200
Reflecting a different superstition that is well known outside of theatre, this breakable object is bad luck to have as part of the set dressing.
A mirror.
400
This musical based on a book was turned into a movie just two years ago and features the famous line "Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty".
What is Matilda?
400
This type of flat differs from the more common flat in one key factor of how it's built.
Hollywood Flat
400
This Shakespeare comedy is a tale of mistaken identity as a set of twins, separated by a shipwreck, try to put their lives back together and fall in love in the process.
What is Twelfth Night?
400
This word refers to locations of actors on the stage and their specific movements, worked out during rehearsals with the director.
What is blocking?
400
The person who writes the play.
What is a playwright?
400
Based on practicality more than anything else, making this sound backstage is considered bad luck because before modern equipment, the sound was used to cue a stagehand to lift or drop scenery, potentially putting an unaware performer at risk of being crushed by a wall or a sandbag.
Whistling.
600
This film brought the stage to the screen with a bang. The glitz and glamour of the 1920s in a big city are set against murder and mayhem as a lawyer and his client play fast and loose with the facts to keep her out of jail.
What is Chicago?
600
An actor told to move from the blue X to the red X on stage would need to cross _______________.
Down Left
600
Superstition, magic, and murder abound in this tragedy about madness, witches, predictions, power, and the fate of a kingdom.
What is Macbeth?
600
The area beyond the stage where the audience cannot see. This includes the wings, any cross-over space, and the dressing rooms.
What is backstage?
600
This person knows how to establish things like age, status, and personality. They often come up with the designs and then show the actors how to apply it on their own. They are often in charge of hair as well.
Who is the makeup designer?
600
Inspired by the pattern on this otherwise beautiful object that, to many, looks like the evil eye, the feather of this awe-inspiring bird is thought to be bad luck to bring on stage.
A peacock.
800
This heartwarming musical is about a large family dealing with life on the brink of World War II. It was made into a classic movie starring Julie Andrews in 1965.
What is The Sound of Music?
800
This is the name specifically used for this small piece of equipment in theatre. 
A Lamp
800
This Shakespearean comedy has it all: love, magic, mix-ups, and fairies!
What is A Midsummer Night's Dream?
800
This word has two meanings in theatre. 1. To remove an object from the stage. 2. The time following a production, when everything is taken down to make way for the next production.
What is strike?
800
This is the person whose job is to interpret the story through dance and movement. This person creates the dances and then teaches the movement to the performers.
What is a choreographer?
800
Based on a false pretense that was actually spread by producers due to the cost of the dye to make this color, there is an obscure superstition that _________-colored costumes are unlucky.
Blue.
1000
Set against the backdrop of the French revolution, this musical follows multiple connected story lines and was made into a movie in 2012.
What is Les Miserables?
1000
These are the actual dimensions in inches of a standard 2x4x8 piece of lumber.
1.5 inch x 3.5 inch x 96 inch
1000
This Shakespeare tragedy about a murdered king and his son's quest for revenge inspired the plot of Disney's The Lion King.
What is Hamlet?
1000
This is typically the first rehearsal of a musical when the actors and musicians come together. The German word translates to “seated rehearsal.”
What is a sitzprobe?
1000
This is the person who works with the director to determine and gather all the items needed on stage for the show. Some things might be set dressing and others might be held and used by the actors.
Who is the props master?
1000
When a theater production closes, it is considered good luck to give the director a bouquet of flowers stolen from this dark (and maybe haunted!) location. This macabre symbolic gesture (theater folk love their symbolism) obviously denotes the end of a production (its death).
A graveyard.