Terms : Hide Images
| 6281117089 | Foil | A character that serves as contrast to another character in the same production. Many times, this character will have a lot in common with his/her counterpart. | 0 | |
| 6281117090 | Concealment | A dramatic convention that allows a character to be seen by the audience, that remain hidden from fellow actors. | 1 | |
| 6281117091 | Drama | A literary art form that re-creates human life and emotions. | 2 | |
| 6281117092 | Dramatic Conventions | Techniques that substitute for reality. | 3 | |
| 6281117093 | Dramatic Structure | The sequence a 5-act play follows including inciting moment, exposition, rising action, complication, climax or turning point (reversal), falling action, denouement or (catastrophe and moment of lost suspense in tragedy) Gustav Fraytag 1863. | 4 | |
| 6281117094 | Spectacle | An event that is memorable for the appearance it creates (first used in Aristotle's time to mean the visual elements of a play i.e. scenery, costume, movement, gesture, etc.) | 5 | |
| 6281117095 | Soliloquy | (Plural Soliloquies) a speech in a play made by a character who is alone on stage, understood as the character's thoughts. | 6 | |
| 6281117096 | Dramatis Personae | (Latin for "persons of the drama"): a list of characters at the start of a play. | 7 | |
| 6281117097 | Monologue | A lengthy speech by a single character in a play, either alone or to others (like Helena's speech at the end of scene I of A Midsummer Night's Dream). Distinguished from a soliloquy because the speaker is not necessarily alone on stage. | 8 | |
| 6281117098 | Aside | A dramatic convention: a speech to the audience, understood to be the speaker's thoughts. | 9 | |
| 6281117099 | Convention | Necessary or convenient features of literature which audiences unquestioningly accept. An example from drama is the "fourth wall": the audience's understanding that a scene showing characters indoors has an invisible wall between the audience and the stage. | 10 | |
| 6281117100 | Upstage | Away from the audience. Used a verb, it means to force an actor to turn away from the audience. This it has come to mean "to draw attention from". | 11 | |
| 6281117101 | Downstage | Toward the audience. So called because stages used to be slightly sloped. | 12 | |
| 6281117102 | Blocking | The movements of actors on a stage. Directors who block (or block out) a scene chart the positions and movements of actors. | 13 | |
| 6281117103 | Comedy | A literary genre intended primarily to amuse the audience. Like tragedy, the term originally applied only to comedies but is now also used for other genres. | 14 | |
| 6281117104 | Catharsis | According to Aristotle, the purging of pity and fear that tragedy causes in viewers. | 15 | |
| 6281117105 | Catastrophe | The resolution of the plot of tragedy, depicting the final downfall of the protagonist. | 16 | |
| 6281117106 | Hubris | Extreme (or "overweening") pride, especially when considered a tragic flaw. | 17 | |
| 6281117107 | Hamartia | According to Aristotle, an error of judgement that causes the downfall of a tragic protagonist. The concept is often identified with the tragic flaw or fatal weakness in character, such as the jealousy for Othello or the pride of Oedipus. | 18 | |
| 6281117108 | Satyr Play | A parody of a myth. The final part of the tetralogy in Athenian dramatic competitions. | 19 | |
| 6281117110 | Exeunt | A Latin stage direction meaning "exit" but referring to two or more characters. Exeunt omnes means "all exit". | 20 | |
| 6281117111 | Stage Directions | Instructions in a script or play text. Early editions of Shakespeare include some stage directions but omit some that must have been intended. Modern editors include conjectures (i.e. guesses) of stage directions, sometimes enclosing them in brackets. | 21 | |
| 6281117112 | Stage Left and Stage Right | These terms refer to the point of view from someone facing the stage. To the actor facing the audience, this, stage left means right and stage right means left. | 22 | |
| 6281117113 | Dramatic Irony | Irony that results when characters say or do something of greater significance than they realize. The audience's knowledge is superior to that of the character(s). | 23 | |
| 6281117114 | Repartee | A fast-paced exchange of witty retorts in modern comedy, used most prevalently by Shakespeare. | 24 | |
| 6281117118 | Tragedy | A literary genre depicting serious actions that usually have a disastrous outcome for the protagonist. Strictly speaking, the term applies only to drama, but it is not also used for novels. Greek tragedy originated in religious rituals worshiping the god Dionysus. This form of drama is structured to give the audience a feeling of catharsis after viewing a production. | 25 |
