HUMANITIES CONNECTIONS
Episode Summary - Vocabulary - Works Consulted - Teacher Response Form

Theater Basics Friday March 15 - Theater Basics (teacher tape) Friday March 22 - Theater Basics (student tape)

Vocabulary

General Theater Vocab:

Narrative Elements (Four-part structure of the traditional drama. The way the playwright arranges and presents these four narrative essentials is the structure of the play.)

• Exposition (where, when, why, and who)-The process of letting the audience know what kind of play is being presented, where and when it is taking place, who the leading characters are, and in what situations and conflicts they find themselves.
• Plot-The series of related events that take place before the audience--it is the development and resolution of the major conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist. Stages in the Plot Structure are: (1) Preliminary situation (2) Initial incident (3) Rising action (4) Climax (5) Falling action and (6) Conclusion.
• Character-The characters dominant traits are made evident through their speeches and actions.
• Theme-The basic idea of the play, which the author dramatizes through the conflicts of characters.

Performance Elements in theater: breath control, diction, body alignment, movement, and stillness.

Production Elements in theater: staging, scenery, props, lighting, sound, costumes, and makeup.

General Theater Terms (used in script):

• Amphitheater-An oval or round structure with no roof that has tiers of seats rising from the center, used for public performances of plays and other productions.
• Antagonist-The person or the force working against the protagonist in a play.
• Aulos-An ancient Greek wind instrument, a double pipe played with a double reed.
• Commedia dell'arte-Professional improvised comedy that developed in Italy during the Renaissance.
• Denouement-An element of plot that refers to the untangling and resolution of complications.
• Dialogue-The lines of a play spoken by characters.
• Greek Drama-Western drama was developed in Greece in the 5th century B.C. as part of the worship of the Greek god Dionysus. To commemorate the god's death, a group of chanters-- the chorus--danced around an altar on which a goat was sacrificed. Therefore, this chorus was called the goat-singers, and their ritualistic chant was called the goat-song, or tragos. From tragos the word tragedy was derived.
• Improvisation-The impromptu portrayal of a character or a scene without any rehearsal or preparation. The actor makes up the character, the lines, and the action, as he goes along, without a formal script.
• Mise-en-scene-What Aristotle called "the spectacle." Mise-en-scene is the set, the lighting, the sound, the costumes, the actors--anything that the audience can see or hear on stage.
• Monologue-A speech by a single actor.
• Pantomime-Given to us by the Romans--it is the art of acting without words. The art of pantomime is basic training for an actor, because a character is portrayed through gestures, facial expressions, and movement-what an audience notices first.
• Processional-A dramatic symbol of the Middle Ages which allowed a city to put its social order on public display. Groups with pageant wagons performed a play before the city authorities when their section reached the central piazza. Processionals often included six full plays with the street as the stage.
• Proscenium stage-The main arch at the front of the stage separating the stage from the auditorium. First introduced by the Italians during the Renaissance.
• Protagonist-The main character in a play.
• Reversal-An ironic twist in a tragedy in which an action produces an effect opposite to what would first seem likely-when the "tables are turned."
• Soliloquy-A speech delivered by an actor alone onstage that reveals the character's innermost thoughts-i.e. Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy.
• Stanislavsky System (Method Acting)-This highly influential system of dramatic training was developed by the Russian actor and producer Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938). This method requires that an actor utilize his emotional memory--his recall of past experiences and emotions. This style of acting was designed, by Stanislavsky, to go hand in hand with the realism of 20th century drama as opposed to the histrionic acting styles of the 19th century.
• Tragedy-A play in which the protagonist fails to achieve desired goals or is overcome by opposing forces-i.e. Oedipus or Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman.

Playwrights (used in script):

• Anton Chekhov-1860-1904. Major Russian playwright and master of the modern short story.
• Savion Glover-1973--. American actor, dancer, and choreographer who won a Tony Award for choreographing Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk. Considered by many to be one of the best young tap dancers in contemporary theater.
• David Henry Hwang-1957--. American playwright and director. He wrote the 1988 Broadway hit, M. Butterfly which won the Tony Award for best play.
• Henrik Ibsen-1828-1906. Norwegian playwright who introduced a new order of moral analysis to the European stage.
• Tony Kushner-1954--. American playwright who won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for Angels in America--an epic drama of life in the age of AIDS.
• David Mamet-1947--. American playwright, director, and screenwriter noted for his desperate working-class characters and for his distinctive and often profane dialogue. Glengarry Glen Ross won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
• Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)-1622-1673. French actor and playwright--the greatest of all writers of French comedy.
• Marsha Norman-1947--. Playwright and director from Louisville, KY. She won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for 'Night, Mother.
• Arthur Miller-1915--. American playwright who combines social awareness with a concern for his characters' inner lives. Best known for Death of a Salesman.
• Eugene O'Neill-1888-1953. American dramatist and winner of the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature. Considered to be the "father" of the modern American Theater.
• Luigi Pirandello-1867-1936. Italian playwright, novelist, and winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize for Literature. With his invention of the "theater within the theater" in the play Six Characters in Search of an Author, he became an important innovator in modern drama.
• William Shakespeare-1564-1616. "Bard of Avon." English national poet who is considered to be the greatest dramatist of all time.
• George Bernard Shaw-1856-1950. Irish comic, dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.
• George C. Wolfe-1954--. Kentucky playwright, composer, director, and producer who won a Tony Award for directing Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk.