Theatre Appreciation Final Exam Study Guide

Which of the following was a part of a Roman theatre but not a Greek one?

A roof extending over the stage to protect performers from the weather

What theatrical activity requires a person to stand in front of others and behave in ways that convey the image of another person?

Acting

Which of the following is not a way that theatrical elements have influenced rock concerts?

An emphasis on meaningful lyrics and sophisticated melodies

Which group in theatre history built their theatres into the sides of naturally occurring hills?

Ancient Greeks

The most violent theatre riot, causing the death of twenty-two people, is referred to as the

Astor Place Riot

Where might an audience member purchase a ticket to a theatrical production?

Box office, website run by the specific theatre company, or a centralized ticket website or app

Which type of Japanese theatre uses puppets that are operated by three performers?

Bunraku

Which of the following is not a type of serious drama?

Burlesque

How can a dramaturg or literary manager assist a director during a production?

By providing research on past criticism and interpretations of previous productions of classic plays

Which genre asks its audience to suspend their understanding of the rules of nature such as probability, cause and effect, and logic?

Comedy

Which type of Restoration comedy poked fun at the social conventions of the upper class of the time and satirized the preoccupation of English aristocrats with reputation?

Comedy of manners

_______________ has led to spectacular scenic and lighting effects using projections and video as part of theatrical design.

Computerization

______________ contains elements of role-playing, costuming, and social interactions as participants attend large fan conventions for their favorite films, television programs, comic books, video games, etc.

Cosplay

What was the challenge for the production team of the musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 when they moved from a small theatre to a large Broadway house?

Creating the feeling of a more intimate space in a larger theatre

Who was the Greek god associated with wine, fertility, and revelry, and whose ceremonies incorporated theatre?

Dionysus

_____________ is a type of comedy that focuses primarily on family situations similar to many of today's television sitcoms.

Domestic Comedy

The stock character from Italian commedia dell'arte that was a foolish scholar was

Dottore

Domestic tragedy and bourgeois tragedy are both examples of the ________ form because they are serious plays that ignore the neoclassical requirement that their chief characters be kings or nobles.

Drame

Which type of rehearsal includes all of the elements for the production being in place, and the performance occurring as though there is an audience in attendance even though there is not?

Dress rehearsal

When was the proscenium arch first put into practice in the theatre?

During the Italian Renaissance

Which of the following creates a bright, hard-edged light and is the most widely used conventional fixture in the theatre?

Ellipsoidal reflector spotlight (ERS)

Which dramatic structure was popular in Renaissance England and features an extended period of time with multiple places, many characters, and both long and short scenes?

Episodic structure

Which type of characters featured in the Theatre of the Absurd have no personal history, nor an apparent cause for their actions?

Existential characters

Which types of characters were frequent in dramas before the modern period, depicted people who held a high or special place in society, and represented some extreme of human behavior?

Extraordinary characters

A gauze or cloth screen painted like a regular flat that becomes transparent when lit from behind is called a silhouette.

False

A highly personal form of theatre usually performed by a single performer that may include aspects of art, dance, film, and music is called cosplay.

False

A scene designer's design concept is arrived at through consultation with the technical director and actors in the production.

False

All of the actors in Greek theatre were male except for the performers in the chorus, which could be either male or female.

False

Anton Chekhov's plays relied on melodramatic events to create unusual circumstances that his characters must endure.

False

Antonin Artaud advocated for a theatre of cruelty that would antagonize and cause physical harm to the audience in order to stress the importance of audience behavior.

False

As cities and urban centers grew in the nineteenth century, people became less and less interested in theatre and nonliterary popular entertainments.

False

As designers, both Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig argued that scene design's basic goal should be a photographic reproduction of real life.

False

Before the director emerged as its own role in the production process, much of the director's work was accomplished by the scenic designers and producers.

False

Beijing Opera is a term used to describe Western musicals receiving productions in China.

False

Both auteur and postmodern directors see the text as the basis of their productions and make very few, if any, alterations to the original script.

False

Both in real life and on stage, an observer is essential to an event.

False

Bourgeois or Domestic Drama focuses on the affairs of state and the ruling class rather than those of middle or lower classes.

False

David Garrick is primarily known in the theatre as a great playwright who worked in England in the eighteenth century.

False

Dramatic characters are created by dramatists to be real people, and performers can best play them by simply behaving like themselves.

False

Due to advances in technology, one conventional light fixture can replace numerous moving light fixtures.

False

Due to technological innovations, many of the long-used materials and machinery in scenic design such as trapdoors and wagons are no longer used.

False

Emerging after World War II, the Theatre of the Absurd displays humanity's sense of alienation and attempts to deal with an ordered and rational world.

False

For the plays produced in ancient Greece and Elizabethan England, the scenery used was specifically created for each production.

False

Frequently costume shops will make mock-ups of the final costume out of the same fabric that will be used for the final finished costume.

False

Global theatre and Western theatre keep their performance traditions separate and distinct and keep to themselves by never intermingling.

False

Guan Hanquing was China's first important drama theorist who believed that a playwright should write clearly with a mass audience in mind.

False

In a change from medieval art, Renaissance art forms focused on religious subjects rather than human beings with whom we can identify.

False

In a proscenium arrangement, the stage floor is called the orchestra and it is at the same level as or lower than the floor of the auditorium's seats.

False

In commedia dell'arte, lazzi are the name of the wooden swords carried by characters that make a loud sound but cause little to no physical harm.

False

In plays that are developed in collaboration by a group of performers or a director, the function of the playwright has been eliminated.

False

Incongruity exists when a character's behavior and actions conform to expected societal norms for a specific circumstance.

False

It is the director's responsibility that the movement, pace, and rhythm of the play maintain the same rate throughout the play so that the audience remains interested throughout.

False

Like an antagonist, a foil or counterpart character stands in opposition to the protagonist and prevents the protagonist from achieving her or his goal in the play.

False

Many nonprofit theatres have a board of directors who have the responsibility of directing every production during the season.

False

More than any of the other elements in the theatre, lighting has been the slowest to adapt to new technologies such as miniaturization and computerization.

False

Often major characters will be costumed like everyone else in the production in order to effectively create a uniform look for a production.

False

Performers in a theatrical production cannot know whether the audience is engaged in a performance.

False

Personalities of the character can be indicated through the color of the costume only.

False

Playwrights of today typically approach writing their plays with a detailed and elaborate plan that is executed with a mechanical precision.

False

Private theatres in Elizabethan England were restricted to the general public as they only allowed admittance to patrons who had purchased a subscription to the playhouse.

False

Romanticism grew out of the melodrama movement, and it featured citizens of good standing who fought for the middle class as its heroes.

False

Sanskrit plays were very popular with the general public since they were written in the language they used every day.

False

Sentimental Comedy and Laughing Comedy refer to the same category of eighteenth century plays that reaffirmed middle-class morality.

False

Sound effects were not used in the theatre until the development of audio amplification.

False

Stock characters are three-dimensional and very individualized but also representative of a larger section of the population because they embody the attributes of a certain type of ordinary person.

False

Streaming services such as the National Theatre Live and BroadwayHD fully recreate the experience of attending a live theatre production.

False

The Greeks greatly enjoyed chariot racing, equestrian performances, prizefighting, and gladiatorial combats as their popular entertainments.

False

The Restoration refers to the returning of the king as the ruler of the French government.

False

The Ritual Structure uses juxtapositions and contrasts to indicate the main idea of the drama.

False

The arena theatre space's popularity is based on its ability to conceal the machinery and working of stage changes and effects, which results in magnificent spectacle.

False

The audience can affect and through their interactions subtly change a performance on film.

False

The balance and arrangement of scenic elements is one of the elements of design called equilibrium.

False

The concept of upstaging another performer originated from actors moving closer and closer to the audience on a raked stage in a proscenium theatre.

False

The fabrics that are used on stage and the symbolic connotations surrounding them are among the few things that have not changed over the history of theatre.

False

The first group of women allowed to act professionally on the English stage were known as the Female Wits.

False

The first step in the design process for a stage set is the creation of a full color sketch called a rendering.

False

The goal of internal and external training is the cultivation of intangible qualities such as charisma and personality.

False

The instructions about when lights go on and off are called light gels.

False

The kyōgen is the main character in a nō drama and is often masked.

False

The long history of the role of the dramaturg in theatre in the United States includes writing plays and securing financial backing for productions.

False

The master recording for all of the sounds to be used in a production is arranged from longest to shortest.

False

The multi-use and flexible space found in numerous theatre complexes is called a black box space because of black cube furniture and set pieces used in acting scenes.

False

The musical theatre today is composed almost entirely of revivals of productions that have had previous success on Broadway.

False

The physical space for a theatrical event is the essential element that is considered the blueprint for a production.

False

The position and type of lighting instrument being used and the angle at which the light strikes the performers on stage is called lighting movement.

False

The production manager is responsible for managing the front of house staff as well as arranging for publicity of the production.

False

The purpose for theatre and drama throughout history has been solely to entertain.

False

The scenic designer is responsible solely for what the audience is able to see on stage and does not have to account for allowing or concealing off stage movement.

False

The social status of actors has varied throughout theatre history, but women have always been able to perform on stage.

False

The style of nonrealism is best described as a departure from realism. Both Expressionism and Naturalism are examples of the nonrealistic style.

False

The typical stage arrangement of theatres in Shakespeare's time was a proscenium.

False

The use of the term "genre" is restricted to only describing the categorization of different types of theatre.

False

Theatre disappeared entirely during the Middle Ages and did not resurface again until the beginning of the Renaissance.

False

Theatre is considered a temporal art because it exists in space.

False

Theatrical design involves only visual aspects.

False

Throughout theatre history acting has aimed at accurately replicating the gestures and movements of everyday life.

False

Today we have over one hundred tragedies that were written by ancient Greek authors.

False

Tragedy assumes that the universe is just and fair towards its characters and their human concerns.

False

Two women, Hrosvitha of Gandersheim and Hildegard von Bingen, wrote political satire dramas during the Middle Ages.

False

William Shakespeare is noted for the powerful dramatic verse in his plays that is often referred to as his "mighty line."

False

Women were permitted to be actors in Elizabethan England if they were married to one of the members of the troupe or were otherwise related to another performer in the company.

False

Which of the following aims at entertaining through exaggeration and ridiculous plot complications, rather than verbal humor?

Farce

Aristotle suggested that which feelings are aroused and purged by viewing traditional tragedy?

Fear and Pity

Which is not one of the three major challenges faced by actors in creating a role?

Finding an appropriate costume

Which is not one of the elements a costume designer works with?

Framing and orientation

Which is not an element of the predominant acting style in the eighteenth century?

Freedom to move anywhere except behind the audience seated on stage

Often considered the founder of modern realistic drama, __________ felt that drama should tackle subjects that had previously been taboo on stage such as economic injustice and the sexual double standard but refused to make simple moral judgments or resolve the dramatic action neatly.

Henrik Ibsen

Which genre contains many of the same features of traditional tragedy but assumes an optimistic worldview and an ending that is happy?

Heroic Drama

Who is not one of the Roman playwrights whose work has survived?

Horace

Which is not one of the three questions to be asked before arriving at a judgment for a production?

How many tickets did the production sell for its opening run?

What type of theatre has the audience play an active role in the production as they choose what they see and do and may even engage in a more complete sensory experience through taste, touch, and smell?

Immersive theatre

Which theatrical elements or devices do daytime soap operas not use to tell their stories?

Improvised dialogue and situations

What are the four different properties of light that can be manipulated by a lighting designer?

Intensity, color, distribution, movement

Moliere was heavily influenced by what other style of theatre?

Italian commedia dell'arte

Which type of Japanese theatre uses male actors called onnagata who play female roles?

Kabuki

Which of the following is considered by contemporary theatre etiquette appropriate—and even expected—interruptions?

Laughter and applause

What document produced by the lighting designer shows the location and color of each lighting instrument as well as what type of instrument is called for and the area on which it is focused?

Light plot

Which of the following is one reason for the movements that depart from realism?

Many effective theatrical devices don't directly correspond to our experience of everyday life

Which kind of puppet is controlled from above by strings attached the head and limbs?

Marionette

Who is responsible for the preparation, hanging, and focusing of all the lights and accessories for a theatre production?

Master electrician

What was the name of the religious vernacular drama performed in the Middle Ages that dramatized a series of biblical events as short plays put together in a series called a cycle?

Mystery plays

What is the name of the document that describes the mythical origin of theatre in India and presents important material on the nature of Indian drama, such as gesture, posture, music, dance, and voice?

Natyasastra

_____________ theatre is not viewed through an electronic medium.

Nonmediated

Kan'ami and Zeami are associated with which form of Japanese theatre?

Nō

Which production is heralded as beginning a significant era of the American book musical by seamlessly fitting together story, music, lyrics, and dances?

Oklahoma!

How did the productions in Elizabethan public theatres indicate changes between scenes?

One group of characters would leave the stage as another would enter

Which incredibly Roman popular entertainment featured a single dancer, a chorus, and musical accompanists, and was similar in some ways to modern ballet?

Pantomime

During the Tang period in China, an actors' training institute called the ___________ was founded which established a tradition of training theatrical performers.

Pear Garden

Which is not one of the elements of Kathikali dance drama?

Performers appear as themselves without makeup or theatrical costume

Which of the following was not included among the dramatic rules known as the neoclassical ideals?

Plays must have a chorus to serve as a narrator explaining the story to the audience

Who has the responsibility to shape the raw material into a sequence of events featuring characters speaking and interacting with each other?

Playwrights

Which of the following is not one of the services the opening scene provides for the play?

Presents the climax of the play

Which character type is the chief or outstanding figure in the action of the play?

Protagonist

Which of the following is not included as one of the seven requirements for stage costumes?

Provide bright colors and interesting patterns to make every character stand out

Under totalitarian societies, which type of art was easier to manipulate to become an instrument of propaganda?

Realism

Which genre is noted for everything on stage being made to resemble observable, everyday life, so that things conform as closely as possible to what we in the audience know?

Realism

The pastoral plays that emerged in the Italian Renaissance were based on what kind of plays from classical Greece?

Satyr plays

Which is not another name for Climactic Structure?

Serial structure

Which Indian play recounts the secret marriage of a king and the foster daughter of a hermit and contains story elements like a magic ring and forgetfulness caused by a curse?

Shakuntala

Which type of microphone is highly directional and is aimed at a specific area from a distance?

Shotgun microphone

________________ takes place in non-traditional theatre settings which provoke the audience to become conscious of the different ways theatre can be presented.

Site-specific theatre

Which Greek tragic playwright increased the chorus from 12 members to 15, added the third actor to the stage so there would be more characters, and skillfully constructed dramas with a climactic structure?

Sophocles

What may a costume designer attach to a final color rendering of a costume?

Swatches of fabric

Which of the following is not one of the five elements of design?

Symbol

Who is responsible for scheduling, constructing, and painting scenery as well as making certain that all designs are executed as conceived by the designer?

Technical director

The zaju play ____________ was part of the popular lawsuit-and-trial genre where a judge frees an innocent person accused of a crime, and Bertolt Brecht created his own version of the play in the 20th century.

The Circle of Chalk

In an arena theatre arrangement, from where must performers make their entrances and exits?

The aisles running next to audience members

Which is one of the differences between a script written for theatre and one written for film?

The amount of dialogue contained in the script

Which of the following best describes multifocus theatre?

The audience has to choose to focus on one or several of the events occurring simultaneously

Avant-garde theatre artists developed, created, or found spaces as a result of trying to eliminate which barrier from the theatre?

The audience-performer barrier

Which of the following is not a characteristic of traditional tragedy?

The characters are given a clear path to escape their fate.

Which is not one of the three basic elements of a stage light?

The gobo

What characteristics do traditional and modern tragedies share?

The plays ask questions such as "why does injustice exist?" and "what is the meaning of our lives?".

What is one important element of set design for the stage that is different than interior decoration in real life?

The scale, or the relationship of the people in the space and their surroundings, must be accounted for

What is the most basic scale by which everything is measured in the theatre in terms of space?

The size of an average human performer, or the human scale

The scenery should immediately suggest what about a play?

The time period for the events of the play, where and when the play takes place, and what kinds of characters the play is about

The events, characters, language, and even structure of the play are frequently illogical in ______________.

Theatre of the Absurd

Which is an alternative name for an arena theatre arrangement?

Theatre-in-the-Round

In a Greek theatre, what is the name of the place where the audience sits?

Theatron

Which of the following is not a quality of the performing arts?

They deal solely with sight and touch and not with sound.

Of the many purposes of plays throughout history, what has often been the purpose for presenting comedies?

To provide entertainment and escape

Which approach to directing can also be called the text-based approach because the starting point of the entire production is the script?

Traditional

What device to move scenery carries performers, furniture, props, etc. from one side of the stage to the other?

Treadmill

A fade is when the lights dim slowly, changing the scene from brighter to darker.

True

A recent trend in musical theatre productions has been the use of previously recorded rock and pop music for their scores.

True

An actor can discover a character's superobjective by beginning with the smaller objectives for individual beats and then moving to larger units of objectives.

True

Aphra Behn, a female dramatist from England, was one of the most successful writers of comedies of intrigue.

True

Asian theatre styles rely much more on dance than Western theatre does, and they more heavily emphasize symbolism.

True

Audiences were affected by the atmosphere of the theatre space even before theatre groups made it a focus of their productions.

True

Because of the increasingly tragicomic viewpoint of our age, tragicomedy is considered a major form today alongside the traditional dramatic approaches.

True

Because scenery was often difficult to move efficiently, flats were attached to long poles extending beneath the stage floor which enabled them to be moved all at once through a single winch attached to a series of ropes and pulleys.

True

Because sound travels more slowly than light, devices are used to delay the electronic sound going through the speakers so that it arrives to the back of the theatre at the same time as the live sound.

True

Before the modern period, attending a live performance included going to an event away from your home to join others to watch a production.

True

Bertolt Brecht and Thornton Wilder are two Western playwrights who adapted Asian techniques of dramatic style and structure into their own works.

True

Bertolt Brecht believed theatre could create the intellectual climate for social change, and he wanted the audience to remain emotionally detached from the dramatic action in order to think about what is happening on stage.

True

Chinese theatre practice was heavily influenced by the Mongol dismantling of the traditional bureaucracy since many literary intellectuals took up theatrical work once they were no longer employed by the government.

True

Comedy is not necessarily more frivolous than serious drama, but it does present a different point of view.

True

Costume colors must be coordinated with those used by scenery and lighting teams so that they aren't washed out or discolored through the combination of the three designs.

True

Credibility is the ability to make the audience believe in the characters that appear onstage and to make the characters convincing.

True

Different directors may identify different spines for the same play.

True

Dramatists in the German Sturm und Drang movement patterned their works after Shakespeare with extensive episodic structure, a mixture of genres, and onstage violence.

True

During the City Dionysia festival in Greece, three of the days were devoted to tragedies, which is the form most identified with Greek theatre.

True

Every production requires someone who takes responsibility for the costumes, whether they are pulled or built.

True

Expressionist plays are often highly subjective and the dramatic action seems distorted or dreamlike because it is presented through the eyes of the protagonist.

True

In order to escape government restrictions, Elizabethan public theatres were constructed just outside the city limits.

True

In theatre, "live" means not only that the event is taking place at that moment but also in the physical presence of the spectators.

True

Introduced in Anna Cora Mowatt's play Fashion, and reflecting the increased nationalism in the theatre of the time, the "stage Yankee" is a representative of diligent, unpretentious, rural America.

True

Josef Svoboda asserted that he created a whole physical space rather than just designs on paper at the back of the stage, and he called that art scenography.

True

Kabuki has remained more popular than the other classical theatre forms in Japan, and it has influenced Western theatre practice with many of its unique characteristics.

True

Live theatre today is more vibrant, widespread, and accessible than at almost any other time in history.

True

Many plays have featured both comic and serious elements throughout history, but tragicomedy specifically intermingles the two viewpoints into one.

True

Melodrama can make a political or moral statement depending on whose point of view is presented as good in the conflict between good and evil.

True

No matter the specifics, each play has its own internal laws and framework to give it shape, strength, and meaning.

True

No one knows exactly how theatre began or when it originated, but one theory is that Greek drama developed out of the dithyrambic chorus.

True

No one physical approach, master, or technique is recognized as the authority in the field of physical actor training.

True

Nontraditional casting is a practice where directors cast roles without considering markers of a performer's identity such as ethnicity or gender.

True

Nō theatre is performed on a stage with a roof supported by four pillars and featuring a bridge called a hashigakari that leads from the stage to the actors' room offstage.

True

One of the most overlooked areas of costume design is the undergarments, which can change or alter the line or silhouette of the performer's body.

True

One of the reasons for the amount of stage fights, violence, and slapstick comedy seen in Elizabethan plays was because the audience for the plays were the same who attended bearbaiting and cockfighting events.

True

One of the types of street theatre involves an original play that deals with the problems and aspirations of the occupants of a particular neighborhood.

True

Opera was invented by people in Italy who believed they were recreating the Greek tragic style which had fused music and drama.

True

Permanent theatre companies in the past didn't require auditions as they already knew which members of the company would play which roles.

True

Radio, film, and television were each believed at one time to be the end for theatre.

True

Realism's power lies in its credibility and in the sense of identification it creates. If the audience can verify from their own experience and observation the way people are behaving on stage, then they relate strongly to what they're observing.

True

Religious dramas were encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church because most of its followers could not read or write, and seeing the stories played in front of them was how they became familiar with stories from the Bible.

True

Serious dramas take a thoughtful and sober attitude toward the subject of the play regardless of whether the play ends happily.

True

Some eclectic theatre artists tried to bridge the gap between realism and antirealism by arguing that each play should define its own form.

True

Sometimes after a costume has been built, it is intentionally distressed to allow it to match the overall look of the production.

True

Stanislavski argued that actors must strive to express specifics when trying to convey an emotion on stage.

True

Technical directors and scenic designers work together on a production like engineers and architects work on the construction of a building.

True

Technology has created easier access in the process of getting an acting job, but once rehearsals and performances begin much of the actor's work is still accomplished in the traditional way.

True

The Federal Theatre Project supported theatrical ventures throughout the United States and helped revitalize interest in theatre outside New York City until funding was discontinued in 1939.

True

The French theatre called Salle des Machines was the largest playhouse in Europe, but it stopped being used after about ten years due to the poor acoustics of the space and the expense of the elaborate spectacles it held.

True

The Romans built circuses, stadiums, and amphitheaters to hold grand spectacle entertainments, and some of those structures still stand today as popular tourist attractions.

True

The audience's ability to enter into the world presented on stage has caused some authorities to restrict or censor the art form throughout history.

True

The box set, where flats are cleated together at angles in order to form the walls of a three-dimensional room, revolutionized stage design in the nineteenth century.

True

The business or administration side of a theatrical enterprise is another element that must be coordinated with the rest of the production.

True

The choices made by the director play a large part in whether the theatrical experience will be satisfactory for the audience.

True

The collision or opposition of persons or forces in a drama is referred to as conflict, and how the characters respond to the conflict tells us about the meaning of the play.

True

The color, shade, and intensity of the lighting design can suggest not only the time of day but also the season of the year.

True

The critic serves as a knowledgeable and highly sensitive audience member who observes the production and then analyzes and comments on it.

True

The intimacy it provides and the economy of production are two of the primary reasons that arena stages are among the oldest configurations and are still popular today.

True

The makeup of audiences has varied throughout history which has affected the type of writing and acting seen onstage for that time period.

True

The most famous of the Chinese plays during the Yuan period was The Romance of the Western Chamber, which was a cycle of plays that chronicled the trials of two lovers and contained adventure and superlative poetry.

True

The obstacles and complications that a character faces create a series of crises that continue until the issues of the play are resolved in the climax.

True

The scene designer creates the visual world in which a play unfolds, and decides the color, shapes, and visual style that the spectators view and the performers inhabit.

True

The technicians who pattern, pin, and manipulate the fabric to perfectly fit individual actors are referred to as drapers.

True

The theatrical event is not complete unless there is someone there to experience it.

True

The thrust stage arrangement has audience members on two or three sides of the stage but not all four.

True

The traditional way of doing theatre has the play fit the space rather than the space fit the play.

True

Though he was more influential as a theorist by establishing the aesthetic and philosophical basis of nō, many of Zeami's plays remain active in the nō repertory.

True

Unlike the Greek theatre, the Roman theatre structure was a free-standing, single unit that was built on level ground.

True

We've come to expect theatrical elements as part of our popular entertainments in places from museums to restaurants to amusement parks.

True

When reading the script, the costume designer should take note of each character's age, gender identity, physical qualities, and any special traits.

True

When the sun was the primary lighting source for many plays, playwrights were able to create nighttime scenes or other lighting shifts through the language they used.

True

Women were allowed to perform in Indian Sanskrit dramas.

True

Popular television variety shows, such as Saturday Night Live, have antecedents in which theatrical forms?

Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Minstrelsy

Many theatres and festivals around the world today are dedicated to producing the plays of this Elizabethan dramatist who excelled in writing tragedies, comedies, and histories.

William Shakespeare

_______________ is a phrase that describes how the audience is able to enter into the world of the drama and experience real emotions even though what is on stage is not actually happening.

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

The production of the play for Noah was noted for which special effect?

Wine barrels holding water that makes it seem like it is raining for five minutes

Which of the following was not one of the three theatres of note in Restoration London?

Winter Garden

The slant of the floor, whether it is the stage floor or the auditorium floor, is called

a rake

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is probably the most famous example of a(n) ___________ play whose plot moves in a circle and features characters failing to communicate in a strange and unrecognizable setting.

absurdist

One of the scenes found in Greek Old Comedy but not Greek tragedies is called a(n) _______, which is a debate between two forces representing opposing sides of a political or social issue.

agon

Heightened realism is best described as

allowing some occurrences on stage that would not necessarily be a part of real life

Many acting teachers emphasize a process called 'centering' that

allows the performer to eliminate any blocks which impede body and voice by finding balance.

Film, television, and theatre share all of the following qualities except

an immediate relationship and proximity to the entirety of their audience.

An acting company organized under a sharing plan would have

apprentices who were in training to become members of the profession, hirelings who were contracted for a specific time at a set salary, and shareholders who received a percentage of the company's profits

Stanislavski argued that a good actor must always

believe in everything that is occurring on the stage.

As actors increasingly became hired for a specific time at a specific salary during the Restoration, they were also allowed to play ________ performances where they would keep all the profits from the night.

benefit

Deliberately placing a performer in a role that doesn't appear to be right for the part is called

casting against type

In the back of the Spanish corrales theatres, the ___________ was where unaccompanied young women were required to sit to be guarded from men entering the gallery.

cazuela

Live theatre is thriving in the United States with performances occurring at

college and university theatres, Broadway theatres, and regional theatres

As transportation improved throughout the nineteenth century, troupes of actors and actresses performing together for a set period of time in a number of plays were gradually replaced by ___________, which were entire productions of sometimes only a single play that would tour different cities.

combination companies

Productions in the ___________________ will often send their designs away to scenic houses that specialize in construction and painting, rather than fulfilling the designs on site.

commercial theatre

The style of seating at Wagner's Beyreuth Festspielhaus was meant to avoid emphasizing class distinctions and had audiences exit at the end of rows in an arrangement known as

continental seating

Costumes must enable the performer to effectively execute the physical movement required to complete their role, such as

dancing, stage combat and quick costume changes

The Bibienas were a family that was renowned in the theatre for being

designers and theatre architects

A _________________ comes from a controlling idea, vision, or point of view that the director feels is important to the play.

directorial concept

For a script, the _______________ chooses the story to be told, selects the dramatic episodes and in what order they will appear, and writes the dialogue to be spoken.

dramatist

Lee Strasberg emphasized ___________ as acting technique where sensory impressions from past events are used to spark emotions that can be utilized onstage.

emotional recall

In theatre lighting, ___________ refers to the fact that beams of light are aimed at a particular area.

focus

The independent theatres established throughout Europe to produce the new realist and naturalist works were organized as subscription companies in order to avoid

government censorship

A ___________ is a floor plan that outlines the various levels of the stage and indicates the placement of all scenery, furniture, doors, windows, etc.

ground plan

One of the functions of makeup in the theatre is to

highlight facial features that wouldn't be visible in a large theatre or may be washed out by stage lighting

In trying to evaluate the work of a director in a production, the audience should ask

if all of the elements of the production fit together and are unified

The chief function of lighting is

illumination

The use of the _______________ began the era of imaginative lighting for theatre.

incandescent lamp

In the theatre, masks can

indicate if the play is nonrealistic, feature one expression frozen in place, be used in actor training to, and prompt more physical movement rather than facial expression

Hairstyles for a character can

indicate the period and social class for a character

Pierre Corneille's play The Cid was opposed because

it didn't follow the neoclassical rules

Musicals that are created out of the music of former popular music stars and groups are often referred to as

jukebox musicals

The full-length secular plays in the Spanish Golden Age known as comedias often dealt with the themes of

love and honor

Pulled costumes refer to

outfits rented or selected from an extensive and maintained costume collection

When a performer is "doubling" in a production it means the performer is

playing more than one role in the same play.

The director is usually the first person after the ___________ to be involved in the creative process of a production.

playwright

The ________________ is the arrangement of events or the selection and order of scenes in a play.

plot

Securing the rights for a play, negotiating with the agents and unions, and overseeing the budget for a production are some of the responsibilities of a ______________.

producer

The Chinese dramas called zaju were composed to suit the rhythms and meters of popular music already known to the audience and were sung by the play's ___________.

protagonist

The growing emphasis on mechanization, technology, and _________ has been the basis of much modern scenery.

realism

The rise of the type of drama known as _____________ made the craft or technique of creating credible, natural acting important.

realism

The 1737 Licensing Act in England was an attempt to

regulate theatres in London and establish government control of plays

Sound ____________ is the use of motivated or environmental sounds that are called for by the script.

reproduction

Examples the book gives of acting in everyday life are: imitation and ___________.

role-play

The Indonesian puppet theatre called Wayang is an example of

shadow play

One of the most common elements of scenery is a flat, which is a

single unit consisting of canvas stretched on a wooden frame used to create walls

The technicians who sew all the costumes are called

stitchers

Two important elements of theatre to consider when trying to discover theatre's origins are

storytelling and imitation

For a work of drama, a text must have

structure, focus, and a point of view.

The manner in which the work is done—how the scenery looks, how the playwright uses language, how the performers portray characters, etc.—is referred to as

style

Theatre provides antecedents for film and television in regards to

subject matter, genre, and structure

Stage directions such as stage right and downstage are always oriented from the perspective of

the performer looking at the audience.

In creating a script based on historical events or real people, a playwright may change the order of events because

the playwright wants the play to focus on one particular interpretation of the story.

The fundamental difference between film and live theatre lies in ______________.

the relationship between the performer and the audience

With his constructivist sets and actors trained in biomechanics, Vsevolod Meyerhold was a leader in

theatricalism

While stage costumes and street clothes often impart the same information about the wearer, stage costumes are different because

this information is magnified due to every element in theatre being a focus of attention

All of the great Asian theatre traditions have created and sustained one form or another of what is called ___________, where there is an integration of elements like acting, mime, dancing, music, and text in a more complete way than in traditional Western theatre.

total theatre

The stage pictures consisting of how the performers are physically arranged on stage allows the director to

underscore the meaning of specific scenes through the visual composition

The physical training approach that combines elements of dance and stage movement with concepts of time and space is called

viewpoints theory

One Stanislavski technique to get to a sense of the inner truth of the character is to use the ___________ that allows the actor to imagine themselves in virtually any situation.

'magic if'