Exploring Drama and Theatre Concepts

Tragedy:

a serious drama or other literary work in which conflict between a protagonist and a superior force (often fate) concludes in disaster for the protagonist.

Comedy:

the genre of dramatic literature that deals with the light or the amusing or with the serious and profound in a light, familiar, or satiric manner.

Tragicomedy:

a drama combining the qualities of tragedy and comedy.

Tragic Flaw:

a flaw that brings about a hero’s downfall.

Farce:

a light, comic work using improbable situations, stereotyped characters, horseplay, and exaggeration.

Satire:

in drama, the use of ridicule, irony, or sarcasm to hold up to ridicule and contempt vices, follies, abuses, and so forth.

Melodrama:

a genre characterized by stereotypical characters, implausible plots, and emphasis on spectacle.

Performance Arts:

a genre of arts comprising a multidisciplinary, live, theatrical presentation, usually involving the audience.

Monologue:

an extended speech by one person.

Plot:

structure of the play.

Crisis:

a decisive moment in the action.

Climax:

the highest or most important crisis, or the most forceful rhetorical moment.

Exposition:

the aspect of plot in which necessary background information, introduction of characters, and current situation are detailed.

Denouement:

the final resolution of a dramatic or narrative plot-that is, the events following the climax.

Complication:

a major part of a dramatic plot in which crises arise leading to a climax.

Foreshadowing:

the organization and presentation of events that prepare the viewer or reader for something that will occur later.

Discovery:

the part of plot comprising revelation of information about characters, personalities, relationships, and feelings.

Reversal:

the part of plot comprising a turn of fortune.

Character:

the psychological motivation of the persons in the play.

Protagonist:

Central personage

Theme:

the dominant idea of work of art, music, film, dance, and literature.

Arena Theatre:

a stage/audience arrangement in which the stage is surrounded on all sides by seats for the audience.

Thrust Stage:

a production arrangement in which the audience sits on three sides of the stage.

Proscenium:

A form of theatre architecture in which a frame (arch) separates the audience from the stage (picture frame stage)

Aesthetic Distance:

the frame of reference artists create in and around differentiate them from reality. A combination of mental and physical factors.

Property:

Any object other than scenery and costumes that appears on stage during a theatrical production, film, or dance. Set props, are used to decorate the scenery. Hand props are used by the actors and dancers as part of their actions.

Absurdism:

a philosophy arising after World War II in conflict with traditional beliefs and values and based on the contention that the universe is irrational and meaningless and that the search for order causes conflict with the universe.

Spine:

the motivating aspect of a character's persona that an actor seeks to reveal by physical means.

Empathy:

identification with another’s situation. A physical reaction to events witnessed on the stage or screen.