Name That Era
Styles of Theatre
Famous Figures
Stages and SFX
Speeches & Scripts
100

This era featured troupes of actors funded by the wealthy, with performers being all men, crossdressing when performing as female characters.

Elizabethan Era

100

This style of play from Medieval Europe features symbolic characters that learn a valuable lesson, usually with religious ties.

Morality Play

100

Hailed as the most famous playwright in all of history, this figure is known for his many comedies, tragedies, and histories, primarily written in verse.

William Shakespeare

100

This type of stage features actors on an elevated stage with a minimal apron, which from the audience's perspective may be viewed like a "picture frame."

Proscenium

100

These are shifts in emotion, tactics, or status of an individual character in a scene, marked by the actor with a "/" with notes about their performance.

Beats

200

During this era, theatre was produced primarily by the Church, featuring plays performed in Latin by priests and churchgoers.

Medieval Europe

200

This type of play features stock characters with clear moral leanings, including spectacular elements such as train sequences, as well as music

Melodrama

200

This figure from Ancient Greece is credited as the first actor, and is the namesake of the modern term 'thespian'.

Thespis

200

This theater in London features both a standing pit and seated gallery for audiences, an elevated stage platform, and an open ceiling allowing sunlight to come through.

Shakespeare's Globe

200

Stanislavski describes this as the facts provided to the actor about a play, including the plot, setting, time period, key moments, etc.

Given Circumstances

300

Featuring masks, a chorus, and male-only performances, this era also introduced the concept of the individual actor.

Ancient Greece

300

This style of theatre features believable characters, written and performed as if they are real people speaking without an audience.

Realism/Naturalism

300

This figure developed his own method of acting, featured in his book "An Actor Prepares," that was based on actors bringing their own memories and experiences to their performances.

Konstantin Stanislavski

300

This type of stage features an extended apron that allows actors to view the stage from multiple angles.

Thrust

300

Stanislavski describes this as the ability to imagine yourself in the shoes of the character you are portraying, and responding to the text as if you were put in these circumstances in real life.

The Magic If

400

This era of theatre valued spectacle over drama, drew inspiration from Greek plays, and introduced the concept of the subplot.

Ancient Rome

400

This style of theatre has a dream-like quality, using repeated phrases and clichés in an attempt to make sense of the nonsensical.

Absurdism

400

This ancient Roman playwright allowed for multiple plots to occur in one play, effectively inventing the 'subplot'.

Terence

400

This type of stage is found outdoors, with audiences seated at many levels in a semicircle around the stage.

Amphitheater

400

A moment in a play of Shakespeare's era, in which an actor confesses their thoughts and feelings aloud, directly to the audience.

Soliloquy

500

This era of history featured many technological improvements such as gas and electric lighting and machines like elevators that could be incorporated into theatrical productions.

Industrial Revolution

500

This style of theatre used stock characters representing servants and masters, and comedic performances that relied heavily on pantomime.

Commedia Dell'Arte

500

This playwright wrote many plays that challenged the political norms of the time, such as A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People

Henrik Ibsen

500

This mechanism allows for actors and set pieces to be lifted in the air above the stage by ropes and pulleys.

Fly-loft

500

This is a character's primary motivation in a play, bigger than their goals in an individual scene.

Super Objective