TXxES 180: Theatre EC-12 Content Exam

Process-Centered Drama: Key Words

Creative Games

Improvisation

Process Centered vs. Production-Centered

Effective Interaction

Ensemble and Collaboration

True or False: In process-centered theatre experiences, the emphasis is distinctly on production.

FALSE: while not precluded, the emphasis is distinctly NOT on production. It is on learning.

List 5 Characteristics of Theatre in Education and Creative Drama

a. Process-Centered

b. content related to classroom curriculum

c. provides alternative methods of accessing material

d. reveals extended aspects of the lesson

e. Taps diverse skills

Theatre Games Are

a. specifically constructed

b. success based

c. require observation

d. create trust

e. employ NVC

NVC

Non-verbal communication

Improvisation

Creating an unscripted scene on the basis of a 'prompt' which could be a word, a sentence, a scenario, etc., without pre-discussion or rehearsal

The purpose of using improvisation in the classroom is to:

help free the actor from inhibition and fear

Characteristics of Effective Interaction

Listening

Eye-Contact

Acting: Reacting-Responding

Choices

Text

Subtext

Characteristics of Successful Collaboration

Includes participants fully

Defines goals and encourages them

Designates areas of responsibility to avoid chaos

Welcomes all ideas

Teacher is accessible and visits all groups

Teacher reinforces positivity

Choosing the ideas that support th goal

Characteristics of a Successful Ensemble

Skilled teamwork

Trust in each other

Group before self

A successful ensemble is illusive, not guaranteed

akin to production-centered work

Chosen material should

Be appropriate for performers and audience

Have educational value

Stretch rather than shrink

Admit to the needs of the performer and the audience

have achievable requirements

Fit your budget

Acting Methods and Techniques (Key Words)

Classical and Contemporary

Greek Theater

Commedia

The MEthod

Sensory Recall

Thoughtful Repetition

Script Analysis

Mapped Script

The Voice as a Tool

Four Major Eras of Theatre

Greek Theatre (circa 500 BC)

Commedia dell'arte (Circa 1400 AD)

English Renaissance (Circa 1600 AD)

American Acting Technique of the 20th century

Acting in Greek Theater was

All about the excellence of voice and story.

Acting in Commedia was

broad, visual, physical

English Renaissance focused on what role in the theatre?

The playwright

The changes in the theory of acting during the 20th Century (specifically in america) centered around the work of what actor?

(Constantin) Stanislavsky

During the English Renaissance, actors often

made large wild hand gestures while speaking (Do not saw the air as other players do!)

When did human psychology begin to take a major role in an actor's process, and whose work inspired that?

20th Century America; Freud

Sensory Recall

a technique employing all five senses in the effort to stimulate more precise memory of past experiences. Sensory recall brings about emotional recall

Sense Memory

using the five sense to respond to imaginary physical stimuli

Education of the Body (Boleslavsky):

Become a master of your muscles, strength, and flexibility.

Education of the Mind (Boleslavsky)

Intellectual and cultural awareness

Development of the 'soul' of the actor (Boleslavsky)

The ability to endure all that will be asked of him or her to portray another human being, often one in peril or crisis.

What is an actor's primary source of information for about his/her character's relationships with others?

The script

Primary areas of theatre design

scene, costume light

Secondary areas of theatre design

makeup, properties, sound

Functions of scene design

Create a place

Indicate a time period

Indicate culture

Indicate class or economic level

Reveal a character

Create a mood

Enhance the metaphorical message

Functions of costume design

Create a place

Indicate a time period

Indicate culture

Indicate class or economic level

Reveal a character

Create a mood

Enhance the metaphorical message

assists the actor to create the character and effect physicality

Primary function of lighting design

to illuminate the stage and allow the audience to see the production, or to hide what is not to be seen

Other functions of lighting design

Direct attention

define form

create mood

delineate area

enhance material

colorize

indicate time of day

indicate movement

reveal

conceal

Proscenium

traditional stage, usually with curtains and wings

Extended Apron

brings the action closer to the audience and allows for a substantial acting area while sets are changed behind the curtain

Apron

area of the stage downstage of the curtain line or proscenium opening.

Thrust

a further extension of the apron which allows for audience seating on three sides. Often the thrust stage and the main stage to which it is connected are not highly elevated, creating an intimate relationship with the audience

Arena (in the round)

allow audience to sit on all four sides. Acting area may be circular, square, or elliptical.

Black Box

Large or small rooms which allow for changes in the stage and audience arrangement as the director chooses

Aristotle's Elements of Drama

Plot

Character

Thought

Diction

Music

Spectacle

should be a balance among them

Gobo

A disc with cut-out areas applied to the front of a lighting instrument, creating a pattern in light on a wall, floor, or cyclorama

Batten

A horizontal pipe or strip of wood, usually as wide as, or wider than, the width of the stage, hung overhead. Battens which run upstage/downstage, as opposed to side to side, are referred to as "tabs".

Light Board

is an electronic device used in theatrical lighting design to control multiple lights at once.

Circuits

a complete electrical path leading from an electrical supply through conductors and perhaps dimmers, distribution equipment, electrical devices, electronic items, etc., to the load and returning to the source. Load is quite often a lamp

Hang Positions

available on battens above the stage, on a grid above the playing area, on pole or bar positions in the house, and on standing light trees.

Fresnels (Fresnel Spotlight)

a spotlight employing a single fresnel lens that produces a soft edged beam, and usually provided with a spherical reflector and a means to adjust the focus from spot to flood

Lekos

A commonly used term for an ellipsoidal spotlight

Ellipsoidal Spotlight

a spotlight that embodies an ellipsoidal reflector and framing shutters, and sometimes an iris an pattern slot

Ellipsoidal Reflector

a reflector designed to converge light rays to a single point, except that point which is occupied by the point source, eventually resulting in a beam that varies in width, depending on the distance between the two points. It has the shape of the end section of an ellipsoidal

Striplight

a multi-lamp luminaire with its lamps mounted in a straight row

Scoop

named for it's scoop-like shape, an open-faced flood light with a large, diffused reflector that is essentially the body of the luminaire. The reflector is parabolic, spherical, or ellipsoidal, and is generally made from unpainted aluminium

Spot Light

Generally, any of several types of luminaires capable of emitting a beam pattern that is round, or in some instances, oval in shape, but more specifically this term refers to fresnel spotlights, ellipsoidal spotlights, and follow spots.

Barn Door

An apparatus with adjustable flaps, usually 2, 4 or 8, that attaches to the front of a luminaire. It is used to block or shape the beam

Top Hat (Snoot)

A metal tube, available in various sizes and shapes, that mounts on the front of some luminaires to control light spill. Some snoots used in the film and video industries have a means to install circular rings, i.e., apertures, to the front in order to change the size of the opening.

Gel (Gelatin)

A type of color media originally made from gelatine, an organic substance made from animal tissues, but now refers to color media made from very thin high-temperature plastic as well. To place gelatine in front of a luminaire to alter the color of the beam.

Color Frame

An apparatus used to hold color media or other types of filters. It can be of various shapes and sizes, and may comprise one or more pieces

Intensity

The brightness of the beam of light

Distribution

direction of the beam and coverage of the surface it hits

Color

Determined by the lamp, is altered by the addition of gels as well as the level of intensity. Color result relates also to the surface being lit

Movement

Physical movement of the beam, changes in color, direction, or intensity of light

Practical Light

Light sources visible as models within your scene (lamps, etc.)

Wash

1) An even, overall illumination over a large area. 2) To create such an illumination.

Unit Set

one in which the basic layout and wall positioning remains the same while decorative elements, furniture, lighting, colors, are changed, thereby creating a new environment. Made up of pieces that can be changed.

Fragmented Set

leaves an impression of a setting.

Flats

frames covered in heavy fabric tautly stretched; act as segments of walls

Drops

large expanses of heavy fabric, hung flat, without any gathering, from an upstage batten. Can be blank or painted to create a visual background appropriate for the scene/setting

Platforms

Levels which offer acting areas above the stage floor

Trompe and Perspective Painting

lend depth and reality to flat backdrops and scenic shapes

Personal Props

small, actor-held items

Hand props

Used, not worn by the actor

Set Dressing

still decor, character influenced

Trim Props

(drapes, mirrors, paintings)

Furniture

Set pieces

Basic functions of costumes

Indicate a time period

Reveal class and status

Reflect culture or employment

Define character's personality

Assist the actor in physicality of character

Enhance or encumber physical movement

Indicate climate, temperature, and weather

Skene

a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted.

Paraskenia

A long, low, stone wall with projecting sides, which may have had doorways for exits and entrances.

Ekkyklema

A wheeled wagon used to bring dead actors in view of the audience

Orchestra (Greek Theatre)

"dancing place;" a circular area placed in which the chorus sang and danced

Theatron

viewing area; where the audience sat to watch a play

Parados

The circular pathway that surrounds the orchestra; can be accessed from either side of the skene

Pageant Wagon

wheeled vehicle used in the processional staging of medieval vernacular cycle plays.

Guilds

Each guild put on it's own cycle play

Three types of artificial light sources in the Italian Renaissance

Torch, ceramic or metal oil lamps, tallow candles

Important Italian architect and stage designer who came up with lighting innovations?

Sebastano Serlio

Bozze

Glass vessels filled with colored water or wine to serve as filters to create colored light

Intermezzi

a short dramatic, musical, or other entertainment of light character, introduced between the acts of a drama or opera.

Paradiso

a system of ropes and pulleys by which a whole chorus of angels was made to descend, singing, from a heaven of cotton clouds. Invented in Italy in the 14th century

In what country and century did opera begin? (answers separated by commas)

Italy, late 16th century (1500s) or early 17th century (1600s)

Mystery Play

usually representing biblical subjects, developed from plays presented in Latin by churchmen on church premises and depicted such subjects as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment.

Morality Play

action of the morality play centres on a hero, such as Mankind, whose inherent weaknesses are assaulted by such personified diabolic forces as the Seven Deadly Sins but who may choose redemption and enlist the aid of such figures as the Four Daughters of God (Mercy, Justice, Temperance, and Truth).

Miracle Play

presents a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles, or martyrdom of a saint.

English Renaissance Theatre

Referring to the theatre of England between 1562-1642

Prominent playwrights in English Renaissance Theatre

Shakespeare, Marlowe, Johnson

The Theater

The first (successful) permanent theatre in England, opened in 1576

The Red LIon

The first permanent theatre in England, opened in 1567. A short-lived failure, it closed quickly after it opened

The Globe

Built in 1599. The theater in London where many of the great plays of William Shakespeare were first performed. Shakespeare himself acted at the Globe. It burned and was rebuilt shortly before Shakespeare's death and was finally pulled down in the middle of the seventeenth century. In the 20th century a restoration was built near the original site

Rose

A permanent theater in England built in 1587

Swan

A permanent theater in England built in 1595

DeWitt Drawing

A sketch of the interior of the Swan theatre draw Johannes (John) de Witt. n by The sketch, surviving only in an early copy by de Witt's friend, Arend van Buchell, is the only extant contemporary representation of the interior of an Elizabethan public playhouse, and as such is invaluable to the study of Elizabethan theatre.

What time of day were plays performed during the Elizabethan age, and why?

Daylight hours, usually around mid-afternoon. Theatres were open to the sky and this time frame allowed the best lighting to see the performance by.

Blackfriars Theatre

Built in 1599, the Blackfriars Theatre was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors did not.

Giacomo Torelli

Italian stage designer, engineer, and architect.His work in stage design, particularly his designs of machinery for creating spectacular scenery changes and other special effects, was extensively engraved and hence survives as the most complete record of mid-seventeenth-century set design.