Intro To Theatre

Question 1

What does the textbook say the four categories of theatre labor are?

Answer 1

Work, art, impersonation, and performance

Question 2

What do presentational performances do?

Answer 2

They acknowledge the presence of the audience

Question 3

What do representational performances do?

Answer 3

They do not acknowledge the presence of the audience.

Question 4

What is realism in theatre?

Answer 4

It is when the actors on stage act as people normally do.

Question 5

What does the textbook say are the two notions of acting?

Answer 5

External performance and internal performance.

Question 6

What is external performance?

Answer 6

It is when an actor plays their character only through outward actions.

Question 7

What is internal acting?

Answer 7

It is when an actor actually lives as their character.

Question 8

What other job did Chekhov have in addition to writing plays?

Answer 8

He was also a doctor.

Question 9

What was the first play performed entirely with method acting?

Answer 9

The Seagull by Chekhov.

Question 10

What is declamatory acting?

Answer 10

It was an old way of acting where the actors would be melodramatic and have large gestures. There were even textbooks that taught which gestures to make for certain emotions.

Question 11

Why don’t playwrights add more details to their stage directions?

Answer 11

Because it allows the director and actors to be more creative with their actions, and set and costume designers to be more creative with their designs.

Question 12

What is parabasis?

Answer 12

It is direct speech to the audience

Question 13

What is credibility in a play?

Answer 13

It is when the characters act and make decisions that their characters would do.

Question 14

What does it mean for a play to have gravity?

Answer 14

It means that the play is very meaningful to the audience.

Question 15

What does it mean for a play to have pertinence?

Answer 15

It means that the play contains subjects that are important to the audience during the time it was created.

Question 16

What does compression in a play mean?

Answer 16

It means how well the playwright takes the time in the story and compresses it into the time of a play.

Question 17

What does economy mean in a play?

Answer 17

It means how well the playwright takes things out of the story so that the story can fit into the time of the play.

Question 18

What is the city for new plays?

Answer 18

Chicago

Question 19

What are Aristotle’s poetics?

Answer 19

Plot, character, thought, diction, song, spectacle, leads to catharsis

Question 20

What are Aristotle’s Classical Unities (Three Unities)?

Answer 20

Unity of action, unity of time, unity of place

Question 21

What is the playwright’s process?

Answer 21

Write in isolation, rewrite in isolation, table read in informal setting, rewrite, table read in formal setting, rewrite, staged reading, rewrite, first (out of town tryout) production? Rewrite? Bigger fully realized production?

Question 22

What are the two things that determine how much of a play’s design is actually created?

Answer 22

The director and the budget.

Question 23

When did scenery start to become more popular in plays?

Answer 23

Only a couple hundred years ago when indoor theatres became more popular and had more controlled environments inside of them.

Question 24

What is metaphoric scenery?

Answer 24

It is scenery that is not made to look like the actual setting of the play, but made to create a symbol or certain feelings in an audience.

Question 25

What is a wing-and-drop set?

Answer 25

It is a set that is made of just pieces that can be moved to create certain settings.

Question 26

What is a box-set?

Answer 26

It is a set that is made of a 3-D room.

Question 27

What did theaters use for lighting before electric lights were invented?

Answer 27

They would use candles, and sometimes hundreds or thousands of candles would be needed to light the stage.

Question 28

What does verisimilitude mean?

Answer 28

It means lifelikeness.

Question 29

What are the two most important plans a lighting designer must have?

Answer 29

They must have a light plot and a cue sheet.

Question 30

What is a light plot for a lighting designer?

Answer 30

It is something that details every aspect and function of each light that is used in the show. (It tells a light’s color, wattage, size, etc.)

Question 31

What is a cue sheet for a lighting designer?

Answer 31

It tells what to do for lighting at each moment of the show.

Question 32

How were extra sounds in shows added during the performance before the 1970s and 80s, and how are the sounds added now?

Answer 32

Before, the sounds were created live (for example, if there needed to be a bell ringing during the show, someone off stage would actually ring a bell). Now, electronic recordings of sounds are made beforehand to be played during shows (for example, if there needed to be a bell ringing during a show, they could just play a recording of a bell rather than actually ringing a bell).

Question 33

Where did puppet theater begin?

Answer 33

In China two thousand years ago.

Question 34

What do drapers do?

Answer 34

They test fabrics on dummies or actors to see if the fabric works for the actor’s performance.