midterm Flashcards
Combination of words and actions that display a specific message. It is meant to engage the viewer.
Context
Plot facts (such as the age of a character) woven into play seamlessly.
Exposition
What are the four major design categories?
- Set
- Light
- Costume
- Sound
Two things required for theater to occur?
- Actors
2. Audience
What three people make the actors life easier?
- Director
- Designers
- Playwright
Barrier between audience and actor?
Fourth wall
Three reasons why theater is needed? (3 E’s)
- Entertainment
- Education
- Enlightenment
What is theater?
An event that requires an actor/audience relationship/agreement in a momentary suspension of disbelief of an imaginary circumstance. It is an action, not a location.
An actor has what two qualities?
- Talent
2. Chutzpah
What is the ancient greek spelling of theater?
Teatron or Theatron (used to describe semi-circular theater of Ancient Greece)
What does “off-book” mean?
The actor has all his/her lines memorized
An actor needs what three things when applying for a job?
- Training
- Headshot (used to be black&white - cheaper)
- Resume’
Who was the mime guest speaker?
Bill Bowers
Top of the stage is known as what?
Fly loft
Types of theaters?
- Proscenium
- Blackbox
- Arena
- Wing
Things on actors resume that are illegal on regular resumes?
- Hight
- Weight
- Skin color
- Age
What was the name of the old west play that Bowers acted out?
Silver Dollar Saloon
What great mime did Bill Bowers learn under?
Marcel Marceau
What is the first goal of Meisner technique?
Develop a sense of truthful doing
What is the second goal of Meisner technique?
Learn to react on a moment to moment basis.
What is a repetitive exercise?
Two actors repeat the same phrase to each other. Repetition eventually becomes safety net. Creates connection between actors. When in doubt, repeat.
The opposite of truthful doing; falsely demonstrating or pretending?
Indicating
The opposite of moment to moment reaction?
Anticipating
Independent Activity?
Added halfway through year one of Meisner, refers to a physical task that can be accomplished with the materials at hand. All items needed to fix a broken coffee mug used as example. Activity must come from imagination.
What new rule is allowed in during the second goal phase and what does it mean?
Organic shift, means a naturally occurring change. Not used to make conversation, but simply for the sake of change.
Who was the second guest speaker we had and what did he lecture about?
Jason Goldstein: Musical theater
What was the name of the play about Rutgers?
High Button Shoes
Who were two major composers?
- Victor Herbert (transition from classical music to modern)
- Sigmund Ropbern
Emotional Preparation?
Part of the independent activity. Partner who is not directly performing the activity sits in a different room and daydreams. This activity emotionally prepares them for interaction.
Conditional love song?
Characters don’t come right out and say “I love you”, instead say something like “If I love you”
What is the type of song that introduces the main character and his/her dreams?
“What I want” song
Who was the third guest speaker and what play was his introduction from?
Joe Discher: King Henry V
Shakespeare is written in what type of english?
Modern o Elizabethan
NOT olde english
Iambic Pentameter?
“Iam” = 2 syllables. one is unstressed while the other is stressed. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are 5 “iams” which equals 10 syllables per line.
Conversational reality?
Practice a scene/script in public and try to make it look normal/nonchalant.
What is introduced in the 2nd year of Meisner technique?
The script
What is the step after conversational reality?
Perform a scene as a specific character.
Tactics used to achieve an objective?
- Bargain
- Blackmail
- Begging
- Get help
- Threats/violence
- Just take/do it
Individualization of the art form; crucial to the development of the play?
Style
The director is responsible only to what?
The text
What is introduced in the 3rd year of Meisner technique?
Directing a short scene, known as a 10-minute play
Movement of actors on stage that director dictates?
Blocking
Where do the stage directions (things in italics/parenthesis on the script) come from?
- The playwright
2. The first director
Point of view?
How to say a line or specific emotion to use.
What the rest of the scene/background looks like?
lightning strike, rain, etc.
The setting
Quote #1 - Oscar Wilde?
“I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
Quote #2 - David Mamet?
“When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say ‘We’re all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world.’ If you’re not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.”
Quote #3 - Sir Laurence Olivier?
“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.”
Quote #4 - Orson Welles?
“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”
Quote #5 - Tom Stoppard?
from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”
“Out of town tryout”?
Reworking a play to make it better, performing it in different parts of the country. Ultimate goal is to get play back to NYC.
Is theater produced by one producer always?
Often done by a group of producers.
The interaction between actors and audience are portrayed through what?
- Designers
- Directors
- Playwright
- Producer
Should playwrights direct their own plays?
It is not advised because the director and the playwright have two different skill sets.
A memorized text by an actor used to show a slice of your capabilities?
Monologue
Director calling back actors whom he is considering working with?
Callback
What happens during callbacks?
- sections of script
- actors get to look over it and read it to someone at the audition
- what is the first impulse of actor? can they take direction? can the two work together?
- approachability
NOMS/ACPR?
- “Not On My Stage”
2. “Alternative Career Path Recommended”
