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A list of theater terms, and brief descriptions, listed in alphabetical order. Act: A division of a play, may be further broken down into "scenes". Also, what the performers do on-stage. [1] Ad-lib: When a performer improvises line on-stage. Derived from ad libitum (Latin). [1] Aisle: An open space amongst seating for passage. [2]
The Half or Final Call : the time before a performance by which all actors must be present in the theatre – commonly half an hour before curtain up. Ham: a bad actor; usually one who overacts or hogs the spotlight. Can be used endearingly to describe rambunctious, but good actors. House: the theatre, the people in the theatre, the audience.
Modern Western musical theatre gained prominence during the Victorian era, with key structural elements established by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and Harrigan and Hart in America. By the 1920s, theatre styles began to crystallize, granting composers the autonomy to create every song within a play.
Seating layouts are typically similar to the theatre in the round, or proscenium (though the stage will not have a proscenium arch. In almost all cases the playing space is made of temporary staging and is elevated a few feet higher than the first rows of audience. Black box theatre: An unadorned space with no defined playing area. Often the ...
Staging is also used to mean the result of this process, in other words the spectacle that a play presents in performance, its visual detail. This can include such things as positions of actors on stage (often referred to as blocking ), their gestures and movements (also called stage business), the scenic background , the props and costumes ...
Theatre or theater (from French "théâtre", from Greek "theatron", θέατρον) is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, mime, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts.
Both "blocking" and "block" were applied to stage and theater from as early as 1961. [2] The term derives from the practice of 19th-century theatre directors such as Sir W. S. Gilbert who worked out the staging of a scene on a miniature stage using a block to represent each of the actors. [3]
Epic Theatre: As devised by Bertolt Brecht, epic theatre forces audience members to constantly return to rational observation, rather than emotional immersion. Sudden bursts of song, elements of absurdity, and breaches of the fourth wall are all prime examples of how this rational observation is constantly revitalized; this idea is known as ...