Act
One of the principal divisions of a full-length play.
Alternative Theater
Any theater - most often political or experimental - that sets itself up in opposition to the conventions of the mainstream theater of its time.
Antagonist
The character that opposes the protagonist.
Aside
A brief bit of dialogue spoken by a character to the audience or to him or herself and assumed to be unheard by the characters onstage.
Black Comedy
A type of comedy in which the traditional material of tragedy is staged to provoke laughter.
Blocking
The process of determining the stage positions, movement, and groupings of actors.
Catastrophe
The final event of a tragedy, which brings about the fall or death of the protagonist.
Catharsis
A purging of the emotions of pity and fear.
Characters/Characterization
Characters are usually the people of a work of literature - although characters may be animals or some other beings.
Characterization includes the narrator's description of what characters look like and what they think, say and do.
Chorus
A group of actors who perform in the orcestra and whose functions might include providing exposition, confronting or questioning the protagonist and commenting on the action of the play.
Climax
The turning point at which a play switches from rising action to falling action.
Comedy
Any play that ended with the characters in a better condition than when the play began, though the term is now used more frequently to describe a play intended to be funny.
Comic Relief
A funny scene or character appearing in an otherwise serious play, intended to provide the audience with a momentary break from the heavier themes of tragedy.
Deus ex Machina
God out of the machine", referring to the mechanized system used to lower and actor playing a god onto the stage in classical Greek drama.
Dialouge
Words spoken by characters, often in the form of a conversation between two or more characters.
Downstage
The part of the stage closest to the audience.
Dramatic Monologue
A poem with only one speaker, overheard in a dramatic moment, whose words reveal what is going on in the scene and expose significant depths of the speaker's temperament, attitudes, and values.
Elements of Drama
The six features identified by Aristotle in Poetics as descriptive of and necessary to drama.
Plot, characterization, theme, diction, melody, and spectacle.
Episode
The scenes of dialogue that occur between the choral odes.
Falling Action
The action after the climax in a traditionally structured play whereby the tension lessens and the play moves toward the catastrophe or denouement.
Fourth Wall
The theatrical convention whereby an audience seems to be looking and listening through an invisible fourth wall.
Hubris
An arrogance or inflated sense of self that can lead to a character's downfall.
Melody
One of the six elements of drama identified by Aristotle.
Orchestra
The area in front of the stage proper where the chorus performed its songs and dances.
Persona
The mask through which actors spoke in Greek plays.
Proscenium Arch
An arch across the front of the stage, sometimes with a curtain.
Protagonist
The lead character of the play, though not neccesarily a hero in the classic scene.
Resolution
A satisfying outcome that effectively ends the conflict of a play.
Rising Action
The increasingly tense and complicated action ending up to the climax in a traditionally structured play.
Romance
A play neither wholly comic nor wholly tragic, often containing elements of the supernatural.
Satire
A work, or manner within a work, employing comedy and irony to mock a particular human characteristic or social institution.
Scene
One of the secondary division within an act of a play.
Set
The stage dressing for a play, consisting of backdrops, furniture, and similar large items.
Soliloquy
A speech delivered by a character who is alone onstage or otherwise out of hearing of the other characters.
Stage Business
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Stage Directions
Written instructions in the script telling actors how to move on the stage or how to deliver a particular line.
Stage Left, Stage Right
Areas of the stage seen from the point of view of an actor facing an audience.
Theater in the Round
A circular stage completely surrounded by seating for the audience.
Tragedy
A play in which the plot moves from relative stability to death or other serious sorrow for the protagonist.
Tragicomedy
A play in which tragedy and comedy are mingled in roughly equal proportion.
Upstage
The part of the stage farthest from the audience, at the back of the playing area.