OAE Theater (048) flashcards
OAE Theater (048) · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Catharsis
- Aristotle's term in the Poetics for the emotional purgation or clarification of pity and fear that tragedy produces in the audience through plot and suffering.
- Verfremdungseffekt
- Brecht's alienation effect: staging choices that keep the audience critically distant from characters so they analyze social conditions rather than identify emotionally.
- Through-line of action
- Stanislavski's term for the single continuous spine of objectives connecting a character's actions across the whole play toward a super-objective.
- Given circumstances
- Stanislavski's term for the facts of the play world, including time, place, relationships, and prior events, that an actor uses to justify behavior.
- Magic If
- Stanislavski's imaginative question asking what the actor would do if placed in the character's exact circumstances, used to generate truthful action.
- Commedia dell'arte
- Italian improvised comedy tradition using masked stock characters, lazzi comic routines, and a scenario outline rather than a fully scripted play.
- Deus ex machina
- A classical device in which a god is lowered by crane to resolve an impossible plot, now used to describe any contrived last-minute rescue.
- Orchestra
- In the Greek amphitheater, the circular dancing and acting area at the base of the theatron, from which the chorus performed.
- Proscenium arch
- The picture-frame opening separating stage from auditorium in a proscenium theater, hiding wing space and machinery behind the frame.
- Thrust stage
- A stage projecting into the audience with seating on three sides, increasing intimacy but requiring blocking that respects wide sightlines.
- Arena stage
- A theater configuration with the audience surrounding the acting area on all four sides, demanding movement and staging visible from every angle.
- Ground plan
- A scaled overhead drawing of the set showing walls, platforms, and entrances, used to plan blocking and to build the scenery.
- Gobo
- A metal or glass template placed in a lighting fixture to project a pattern or texture onto the stage or scenery.
- Gel
- A colored transparent filter placed in front of a lighting fixture to change the color of the beam on stage.
- Cyclorama
- A large curved white or light backdrop at the rear of the stage that receives colored light to suggest sky or abstract space.
- Counterweight system
- A fly system using an arbor of weights to balance a batten load so scenery can be raised and lowered safely by one operator.
- Prompt book
- The stage manager's authoritative binder containing blocking, cue sheets, running order, and contacts, used to call and reproduce the performance.
- Stage right
- The side of the stage to the actor's right when facing the audience, which appears as the audience's left.
- Blocking
- The planned movement and stage positions of actors, recorded in the prompt book and revised to solve sightline and composition problems.
- Beat
- A unit of dramatic action in which a character pursues one objective until a new tactic or obstacle begins a new beat.
- Objective
- The specific thing a character wants from another character in a scene, phrased as a playable action rather than an emotion.
- Subtext
- The unspoken meaning or tactic beneath a line of dialogue, which the actor plays while the words say something else.
- Inciting incident
- The event that disrupts the status quo and sets the protagonist's central desire and conflict in motion.
- Freytag's pyramid
- A five-part model of dramatic structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement or catastrophe.
- Eleven o'clock number
- A showstopping musical theater song placed late in the second act that marks a character's turning point or revelation.
- Jukebox musical
- A musical whose score consists of previously released popular songs, with a book written or adapted to connect them.
- Dramaturg
- A production collaborator who researches script context, translation, and history, and advises the director on cuts and program materials.
- Lazzi
- Repeated comic bits or physical routines performed by commedia dell'arte actors, often improvised around a scenario's plot points.
- Diaphragmatic support
- Breath management using the diaphragm and lower torso to control airflow, giving stage voice power and endurance without throat strain.
- Belt
- A musical theater vocal quality with a speech-like, high-larynx placement and powerful chest-mix resonance, used for climactic songs.
- Yes, and
- The core improvisation rule of accepting a partner's offer and building on it, rather than blocking or denying the premise.
- Fight director
- A trained choreographer who designs and safely rehearses staged combat, ensuring distance, angle, and controlled reactions rather than contact.