Final Flashcards
Quote Garson Kanin
Remember, the world is a playwright, W.R.I.G.H.T like wheelwright. A play is not so much written as it is wrought, its designed, built, shaped and carved out.
4 stages of writing a play
inner readiness - preparation of the playwright, to write the play his or her preparation is curiosity leading to life experiences.
Germinal Idea - the seeds of the play, its seminal impulses it is the “spark” of creativity.
Structure - climatic, episodic, ritual or cyclical
Creating characters
- observe the people around you even eavesdrop
- make them frail or herotic
- write them outside the superficial standards of their time
- describe your character beautifully
- share common ground between the writer and the character
The spark of creativity
- is a way of dealing with life experiences, of processing of asking difficult questions.
- brings satisfaction/delight to the writer
- can have an effect upon others
Where to playwrights get their ideas?
new, world events, history, mythology, personal experience, imagination (if you are open and attentive)
Climatic structure
- plot starts late story
- covers a short period of time
- set in a restricted locale
- only a handful of characters
- linear or singular plots, few if any subplots.
- all action is cause and effect
Episodic Structure
- plot starts early in the story and moves through a series of episodes.
- plot may cover days, month, years.
- has a profusion of characters
- several threads of action/subplots
- scenes are juxtaposed to one another
Ritual/ Cyclical
- repetition of action that repeated so meaning is acquired
- structure that reoccurs to allow the audience to draw meaning rather than focus on what happens next.
Ritual - an attempt to control the unknowable forces of the universe through repetition.
three things needs for theatre to exist
Actor, Audience, Something to communicate
Wearing “masks” in daily life and acting:
- acting is observed whereas in real life “acting” may or may not be observed but is not critical, whereas it is in the theatre performances.
- Actors play a role that they do not play in real life whereas the roles we play in real life are genuine.
- acting is a conscious event whereas most people go through life unconscious about who they are. Acting is a rehearsed and planned event it is a skill to be learned.
- Dramtic characters are not real people. Characters are symbols of real people, that signify or are “signs” that reflect the choices we make in any given situation.
Sir LAwrence Oliver
“acting is the art of persuading”
Define actor
a person who interprets and plays a character in a play.
Willing suspension of disbelief
The audience desire to believe in the reality of what is happening onstage.
Three ingredients in the actors craft
- native ability - charisma
- training - representational, not imitating them but actor represent the characters body and soul.
- practice
Constantin Stansiavski
- He believed you could train an actor to be better.
- Created a system for acting.
Lee Strasberg
- the method
1. actors voice and body should be thoroughly trained to meet the demands placed on it
2. be a skilled observer of reality
3. seek an inner justification for everything done on the stage
4. analyze the script
5. be a student of life
Text/Subtext layout
TEXT what the characters says/speaks/diction \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ SUBTEXT what the character thinks but does not say.
Acting is all about doing the action not the emotion
The producer
- purchases a property from the originating artist or if deceased, her estates to produce in a form other than for which it was orginally created
- producer than seeks to capitalize the production: funds needed to produce the production
- capital is understood to be an asset rather than income (primary ticket sales)
- the producer hire a stage director
Public Domain
when intellectual property rights have lapsed.
Stage Director
is the individual who supervises the creative aspects of a dramatic production
- serves as liaison between the production and audience
The director
- chooses or is contracted to direct a “property”
- interprets the text/script
- works with the production team
- – scence costumes light sound designer
- casts parts
- guides the rehearsal process
- coordinates all production elemnts into a unified finished product
Two kinds of Dicrectors
Interpretive
- translates the work of the primary artist and serves her vision
Auteur director
- primary artist she uses the tools of the theatre to fashion her own world of art, servicing her vision, not that of the playwright.
Factors that determine casting
pyschial attributes
talents
can an actor grow in a role?
match with other actors
color counciousness casting
interionally considers the race and ethnicity and gender of actors and character in teh order to oppose racism
Gender
Performance of ones sex
that is performing masculinity or feminity
Mise-en-scene
placing on the stage
— it is the visual theme of visual telling of the story
Communicating
the approperate first impression for the audience member
the tone and mood for the production
contributing
- by providing the actors and director with the physical elements needed to tell the story
- place or locale
- time and period
- style of the production
- social status of the characters
- how and where the actors are able to move on the stage (blocking)
- how we move from locale to locale
teamplayer
theathre is a collabrative process
working together/combining the work of other artists.
being theatrical
exhibitionistic, exaggerated
the result of the partnership between the audience and the live performance
5 elements of design
line - shape or outline
mass - weight or how to occupy space
color - hue, pure color name. Value - contrast
texture - appearance of feel, fabrics on stage
scenic/costume elements - the b;ance or arrangment of pulling togeter of all elemts.
Costume design signifys something
conveys a meaning such as... postition/status power gender occupation outgoing/modest
The design process
- contacted assignment
- read the script. what is the play about (themes and ideas)
- meet with the direactor and other designers
- research. look for ideas
- record intial ideas, and research by sketching and creating rough sketches.
- — “TYRANNY OF THE FIRST IDEA” - intial ideas are presented to the director and other designers to obtain approal and make cetain they work
- draft design elemtns scale plans for construction, techinical designer over sees.
LIGHTING DESIGN
- is the design intergrated late into the production process
- is it the “give” that pulls the enire production together into a unified whole
Gas lighting
1816, chesnut street theatre
5 functions of lighting design
- provide illumination (selective visablity)
- aids in the creating the mise - en scene or establishing the times, season, weather, source of light.
- aids in establishing the plays style
- prodives focus
- revelation of form 3-d
FOUR controlable qualities of light
- distribution/composition
- — where is the light coming from, what direction
- - back lighting,
- - front light- – key light, sun primary source of light
- – fill light, light on the other side (shadow side)
- intesity - how bright or how dark
- movement - chase light, flashing/blinking, dim
- color - signifys meaning
William Shakesspheare the worlds greatest play wright bc…
1564 - 1616 (1616 400th anniversity)
- most produced playwright in the world
- plays are translated into almost every langauge
- works have been researched and studied more than any playwright
- withstood the test of time
- his work is open speaks universaly, nature addressing the human condition in any generation any place
Shakespeare’s work influenced many things. Like what?
- Architecture
- noble classes in blacony
- rising merchant - turtherout
- poor in the pit - Language
- spectator –> seeing
- hearer –> hearing - Rising middle class.
who many words did shakespeare develop?
1,800 example, bloody, lonely, majestic, hurry
Language works in four way
- expressions of emotions that stir the soul
- stir the imagination of a hearing and not seeing audience
- as puns and play on words
- to reveal the soul and grandeur of men
three types of generes
HISTORY
- Henry IV, Part 1 and Part II
- Henry V
- Richard III
TRAGEDY
- Romeo and Juliet
- Hamlet
- Othello
- King Lear
- Macbeth
COMEDIES
- Taming of the Shrew
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- The Tempest
- Twelfth Night – shes the man
- Merchant of Venice (Tragi-Comedy)
