Untitled Flashcards

The word “theatre” comes from the Greek theatron, which means

Although the names and allocations of craft functions such as directing, producing, designing, and stage managing have changed over the course of the theatre’s history, the functions themselves have remained fairly constant

T or F

Adult plays and children’s games share the ability to help develop means of coping with life’s challenges and uncertainties

T or F

Theatre performances can elicit the audience’s participation by arousing in the audience the feeling of empathy.

T or F

Like viewers of television drama and movie-house films, theatre audiences assume an essentially one-on-one relationship with what is being viewed and do not communicate with other viewers. 

T or F

The advantages of live performance include two-way communication between audience and actors, unification of group responses, and live immediacy which makes every show novel and different.

Although films are recorded, as we perceive them as having greater immediacy than theatre due to the fact that plays are rehearsed and repeated

T or F

The six components of a play which Aristotle lists, in order of importance, are

Which element of drama refers not only to the pronunciation of spoken dialogue but also to the literary nature of the play’s text, including its tone, imagery, articulation, and use of such literary forms as verse, rhyme, metaphor, jest, apostrophe, and epigram?

Which dramatic genre offers a wild, hilarious treatment of a trivial theme, usually based on a stock component like identical twins, switched identities, lovers in closets, and might include full-stage chases, misheard instructions, various disrobings, discoveries, and disappearances?

In Greek tragedy, the central character

Which element describes the play’s use of rhythm and sounds, either by way of instrumental composition or the orchestration of such noises as muffled drumbeats, gunshots, special effects, and vocal tones?

Which of the following is generally true about the differences between tragedy and comedy?

The purging or cleansing of the audience’s pity and terror at the climax of a tragedy is called

The audience is not a part of the definition of conventions of the theatre.

T or F

In a Greek play, the lead character that moves the action forward is opposed by a figure called the antagonist.

T or F

The central character in any type of drama is called is called the tragic hero.

T or F

A play that deals with an issue of serious and lasting significance in humanity’s spiritual or intellectual life beyond the mere attempt to imitate profundity is said to possess

The playwright’s skill at condensing a story that may spans many days or years of chronological time into a theatrical time frame is called

The quality of a play that describes the way the playwright creates a world in which every detail fortifies our insight into the play is called richness.

T or F

The term “playwright” refers to

A play in which every character possesses an independence of intention and expression, and whose motivation appears sensible in the light of our general knowledge of psychology and human behavior, possesses

Which of the following is the most accurate statement of the audience’s response to the drama?

A play in which events are connected to each other in strict, chronological, cause-effect continuity, and in which dramatic experience attempts to convey a lifelike progression of experience through time, is classified as

A linear plot proceeds by

The quality of a play that creates suspense by making us wonder what will happen next is called curiosity.

T or F

All of the following are signs of good characterization EXCEPT

The mid-twentieth century saw an emphasis on “reality” and inner emotional life in the theatre.

The type of performing that asks the actor to enter the mind of the character being played is

Which faculty keeps the actor within established bounds and at the same time ensures artistic agility?

The three stages of the actor’s routine are personal training, premiering, and running the show.

T or F

“Discipline” refers to the strictness and decorum with which the actor converses with the director.

T or F

An expressive voice and a solid education in literature are the two components of training an actor’s instrument.

What are the two fundamental notions of acting?

Which two writers best exemplify the range of difference between external and internal approaches to assuming a character?

In general, acting is a low-income life, more often than not depressing, anxious, and beset by demands for sacrifice from every direction—psychologically, financially, and morally.

T or F

Who maintained that the actor should be “an unmoved and disinterested onlooker” and imitate emotion rather than feel it?

“Discipline” refers to the strictness and decorum with which the actor converses with the director.

T or F

Great acting must transcend mere technique or training and elevate itself into something higher.

T or F

The major psychological component of the actor’s instrument is the unconscious.

T or F

Small-scale movement on the stage, which an actor performs within the larger pattern of entrances and exits, is called

Which of the following tasks belong to the director?

Which of the following is true of stylizing directors?

What does a director NOT seek in a designer-director collaboration?

The timing and placement of a character’s entrances, exits, crosses, embraces, and other major movements is called

The initial shows where a director can evaluate the production in terms of audience response and institute new changes are known as

As a response against Stanislavsky’s realism, the director Vsevolod Meyerhold evolved a theatre of “biomechanical constructivism” in Moscow.

T or F

Which statement best describes the end of the director’s involvement with the play?

Which person is responsible for the financial support of the production and, working closely with the director, also contributes to many “directorial” decisions in the production process?

A great directorial concept has the qualities of being generalized, well-established by tradition, intellectually relaxing, designer-oriented, and readily apparent.

T or F

George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, is generally regarded as the first modern director.

T or F

A producer may be an individual, such as an artistic director, or a partnership of individuals, such as a committee

T or F

The director’s work with the designers is generally suggestive and connective, rather than overly controlling

T or F

A great directorial concept has the qualities of being generalized, well-established by tradition, intellectually relaxing, designer-oriented, and readily apparent.

T or F

Which of the following is NOT a postmodern design element?

The order and process of developing a design for a play could be summarized by the following steps:

Which of the following types of stage is completely surrounded by audience?

In describing dramatic space as “psycho-plastic,” which “scenographer” (Europe’s most celebrated in the 20^thcentury) said “The goal of a designer can no longer be a description of a copy of actuality, but the creation of its multidimensional model?”

All of the following are elements the scenic designer might take into consideration when creating the visual presentation of the staging EXCEPT

Platforms, flats, and drapery are the traditional building blocks of fixed stage scenery.

T or F

Realistic costuming took over when which of the following became a major guiding principle in drama?

The movement toward scenic abstraction began with the theoretical and occasionally practical works of Adolphe Appia.

T or F

Makeup can serve all the functions EXCEPT which of the following?

The production stage manager’s primary responsibility is the working and timing of lighting cues, ensuring that the lights support the play’s action and aesthetic.

T or F

The name given to the boards that elevate the actors above the level of the audience is a flat.

T or F

A loosely woven fabric that looks opaque when lit from one side and transparent when lit from the other side is called a cyclorama.

T or F

This playwright speaks of “two selves, the public and private self, the worlds that people juggle a lot of time just from being out there in the world,” and whose works, such as Wrecks, reflect this statement.