Intro To Theatre Midterm

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Aesthetic Response

Back 1

Audience reaction to art objects as art, not as an idea, meaning, or so on; implies some idea of "beauty"

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Art

Back 2

Activity done for it's own ends, seperable from both life and practicality, although it may be applied to very practical as well as aesthetic purposes

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Criticism

Back 3

The careful, systematic, and imaginative study and evaluation of works and drama and theatre

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Ephemeral Art

Back 4

Art that cannot be repeated exactly.

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Impersonation

Back 5

Pretending to be another

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Performance

Back 6

In life, the execution of an action or a behavior taken in response to a stimulus. In art, the action of representing a character in a play, or, more generally, any public presentation.

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Performing Arts

Back 7

Any art that depends on a live performer in the presence of a live audience, for example, theatre, dance, opera, musical concerts.

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Theory

Back 8

Any systematic attempt to explain a phenomenon

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Applause

Back 9

Positive Response to Performance by clapping hands.

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Culture

Back 10

The set of beliefs, values, and lifestyle of a group.

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Encore

Back 11

Part of performance repeated in reponse to audience applause.

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Milk an audience

Back 12

When a performer tries to evoke responsed from an audience beyond that which it seems inclined to give.

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National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

Back 13

Federally funded arts-support entity

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Producer

Back 14

Executive who arranges financing and who oversees a commercial production

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Sharing company

Back 15

One made up of share holders

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Standing Ovation

Back 16

An audience stands and calps in order to show supreme approval of a performance.

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Action

Back 17

According to Aristotle, a casually linked sequence of events, with beginning, middle, and end; the proper and best way to unify a play. More popularly, the single and unified process of which a drama is the imitation. To some modern critics, an interaction.

Front 18

Antagonist

Back 18

The opponent in an agon, or contest; in drama, either of two opponents in conflict, or the character who opposes the protagonist.

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Causal Plot

Back 19

Plot of linked, internally consistent cause and effect.

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Character

Back 20

One of Aristotles six parts of a play, the material of plot and the formal cause of thought; an agent in the play whose qualities and traits arise from ethical deliberation. In popular parlance, the agents or "people" in the play.

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Climax

Back 21

The highest point of plot excitement for the audience.

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Complication

Back 22

Ascending or tying action. That part of the plot in which the action is growing tenser and more intricate up to the point of crisis.

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Confidant

Back 23

In drama, a character to whom another character gives private information.

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Conflict

Back 24

Clash of characters, seen either as objectives that create obstavles for one another, or as actions, neither of which can succeed unless the other fails.

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Crisis

Back 25

Decisive moment at the high points of a rising action, turning point.

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Denouement

Back 26

The part of the plot that follows the crisis and that includes the untangling or resolving of the play's complications.

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Discovery

Back 27

According to Aristotle, any passage from ignorance to knowledge within a play, by means of sign, emotion, reasoning, action. Good discoveries grow out of suffering and lead to reversal

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Episodic Plot

Back 28

Plot whose incidents are connected by idea or metaphor or character, not by cause and effect.

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Exposition

Back 29

Necessary information about prior events, or part of a play given over to communicating such information; because it is a "telling" and not an enacting of narrative, it is usually nondramatic.

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Foil

Back 30

A minor character intended to set off another character through contrast.

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Generic Criticism

Back 31

Criticism by identification of genre

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Genre

Back 32

In dramatic criticism, a category of plays: comedy, tragedy, melodrama, farce. Popularly, any category.

Front 33

Idea

Back 33

In aristotelian criticism, the moral expression of character through language; more generally, the intellectual statement of the meaning of a play or a performance

Front 34

Plot

Back 34

1. In Aristostle, one of the six parts of a play and the most important of the six; the formal cause of character; the soul of tragedy; the architectonic part of a play.
2. Popularly the story of a play, a novel, and so on.

Front 35

Point of attack

Back 35

The place in a story where a dramatic plot begins. Typically, Greek plays, like Oedipus Rex, have a late point of attack, and medieval and Shakespearean plays, like King Lear, have an early point of attack.

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Protagonist

Back 36

In Greeak theatre, the first (or major) actor, the one who competed for the prize in acting. Later, the leading character in any play. (the "hero")

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Raisonneur

Back 37

In drama, a character who speaks for the author.

Front 38

Reversal

Back 38

According to Aristotle, a changein the direction of action or in the expectation of character. Reversals result in complex plots, preferred over simple plots for tragedies.

Front 39

Spectacle

Back 39

One of aristotles six parts of a play, the part of least interest to the poet but of most importance in differentiating the dramatic form from the narrative and the epic. In everyday parlance, all visual elements of production and, by extension, particular plays, scenes, or events in whicvh visual elements predominate.

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Abstraction

Back 40

An artisitc depiction that is different from a literal, photographic representation of the thing depicted, usually by being more generalized, less particular.

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Auditorium

Back 41

"Hearing place"; audience section of the atre.

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Convention

Back 42

A way of doing things agreed on by a contract between audience and artists; for example, characters singing their most important feelings and emotions is a convention of musical comedy.

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Given Circumstances

Back 43

Basic facts that define the world of the play; conditions of place, period, social level, and so on.

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Story

Back 44

Narrative; coherent sequence of incidents

Front 45

Style

Back 45

1. Distinctive combination of elements.
2. In aristotelian terms, the way in which the manner is joined to the means.
3. The way a thing is done

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Surprise

Back 46

An unexpected discovery or event. In dramatic surprise, the surprise , although unanticipated, must be seen in retrospect to be quite probable.

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Suspense

Back 47

An increasing sense of expectation or dread, provoked by establishing strong anticipations and thgen delaying outcomes.

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apron

Back 48

THe part of a stage that extends in front of the proscenium arch

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Arena theatre

Back 49

A theatre in which the audience completely surrounds the playing area

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Balcony

Back 50

Elevated Audience Area

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Box

Back 51

Eighteen and nineteenth century arrangement of audience with a ground-level pit, up to five levels of boxes or galleries surroundng it, with the cheapest seats at the top.

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Broadway

Back 52

In popular parlance, the area of New York City on the adjacent to the street named Broadway, where the commercial theatre of the United States is concentrated.

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Community Theatre

Back 53

Theatre performed by and for members of a given community, especially a city or town. Usually amateur.

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Educational Theatre

Back 54

Theatre for students

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Forestage

Back 55

Level part of the stage in front of the scenery

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Front of House

Back 56

Those relating to production that transpire in front of the curtain.

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Gallery

Back 57

The highest audience seats in theatres, the cheapest seats. They are on balconies.

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Orchestra

Back 58

seat between the major audience area and the stage

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Regional Theatre

Back 59

best seats

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Proscenium

Back 60

regular theatre

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Road

Back 61

a complex of theatrical circuits for traveling and performing plays outside new york city.

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Road Show

Back 62

Production for the road

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Sight lines

Back 63

extreme limits of the audiences vision from the fathest seats away

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Thrust Stage

Back 64

shakesphere stage of theatre. 3/4 round stage.

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Vomitory

Back 65

audience entrance of the theatre

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Wings

Back 66

sides of the offstage.

Front 67

Royalty

Back 67

payments made to the authors to reproduce the work

Front 68

Instrument

Back 68

The actors physical self

Front 69

Transformation

Back 69

character transforms into a different character w/o changing costume

Front 70

Through line

Back 70

consistent element of charater running through a scene or play