American Drama

Afrofuturism

A cultural, artistic, and literary movement that combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, history, African diasporic culture, and technology to imagine Black futures, alternate histories, or liberatory possibilities. Example: works by Octavia Butler heavily influence Afrofuturist thinking.

Pastiche

A work or section of a work that imitates or combines styles, genres, or elements from other works as homage or stylistic borrowing, usually without mockery. Think: a play blending Greek tragedy, vaudeville, and realism.

Parody

An imitation of another work, style, genre, or convention for comic effect, critique, or satire. Unlike pastiche, parody usually exaggerates or mocks its source.

Postmodernism

A broad artistic/intellectual movement characterized by skepticism toward grand truths or universal narratives, often including fragmentation, irony, self-awareness, genre mixing, unreliable narratives, and blurring high/low culture.

Mythopoesis

The creation or reshaping of myths—building symbolic stories, worlds, or archetypes that function like mythology. A playwright may turn ordinary characters into mythic figures or rewrite cultural myths.

Paraprosdokian

A rhetorical device in which a sentence or phrase has an unexpected ending that forces reinterpretation of the earlier part. Often used for humor, irony, or surprise.

Idiom

A phrase whose meaning cannot be understood literally from the individual words. Example: 'Break a leg' means good luck, not actual bodily harm.

The Beat Generation

A literary/cultural movement of the 1940s–50s associated with rejection of postwar conformity, experimentation, spirituality, and counterculture. Major figures include Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

Happening

A form of performance art emerging in the 1950s–60s involving spontaneous, often audience-participatory events that blur the boundaries between art and life.

Verisimilitude

The quality of seeming true, real, or believable within a work, feeling internally convincing even if it is not literally realistic.

Euphemism

A mild, indirect, or less harsh term used instead of something blunt, unpleasant, or taboo.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, usually alone on stage, speaks their thoughts aloud to the audience, revealing inner conflict.

Apostrophe

A rhetorical device in which a speaker directly addresses an absent person, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object as though it could respond.

Colorblind Casting

A casting practice in which actors are selected without regard to race, under the idea that race should not matter to the role.

Nontraditional Casting

A broader term for casting actors in roles regardless of characteristics traditionally associated with those roles, often acknowledging identity.

Minstrelsy

A 19th- and early 20th-century American performance tradition in which performers used racist caricatures to depict Black people.

Theatre of the Absurd

A dramatic movement emphasizing the meaninglessness, illogic, or incomprehensibility of human existence.

Theatre of Cruelty

A theatrical philosophy advocating intense, sensory, shocking performance designed to jolt audiences out of complacency.

Alienation Effect

A concept from Bertolt Brecht in which theatrical techniques remind audiences they are watching a performance, preventing emotional immersion.

Comedy of Manners

A satirical comedy focused on the social customs, etiquette, hypocrisy, and romantic behavior of upper-class society.

Magical Realism

A mode in which fantastical elements appear within a realistic world, treated as normal by characters.

Metatheatricality

The quality of a play being self-aware as theater, drawing attention to itself as a performance.

Black Arts Movement

A 1960s–70s Black cultural and political movement emphasizing art made by, for, and about Black communities.

Ritual Theater

Performance drawing on the structure, symbolism, and communal function of ritual ceremonies.

Two-Hander

A play written primarily for two performers, creating psychological intensity and relationship focus.

Monodrama

A dramatic work performed by a single actor, typically structured around one performer carrying the piece.

Heritage Performance

A style centered on preserving or presenting cultural/national history, tradition, or canonical works.

False Consciousness

When oppressed groups internalize beliefs, values, or ideologies that work against their own interests.

Second Great Migration

The large-scale movement of African Americans from the rural South to Northern and Western U.S. cities from about 1940 to 1970.

Liminality

A state of being in-between categories, identities, or stages of transition.

Pan-Africanism

A movement advocating solidarity, unity, and shared struggle among people of African descent worldwide.

Assimilationism

The belief that minority groups should adopt the cultural norms of a dominant group.

Consciousness Raising

A practice in which people collectively share experiences to recognize systemic social or political issues.

Redlining

A discriminatory practice denying loans or services to certain neighborhoods based on racialized policies.

Ethnography

A qualitative research method studying a culture through observation, participation, and interviews.

Heteronormativity

The social system treating heterosexuality and traditional gender roles as normal, marginalizing other identities.

Ironic Racism

The use of racist language or behavior claimed to be ironic or satirical, potentially normalizing harmful ideas.

Strenuous Masculinity

An ideal emphasizing physical toughness and aggression, often linked to anxieties about masculinity.

Orientalism

A concept describing how Western cultures historically represent 'the East' in ways reinforcing dominance.

The Return of the Repressed

A psychoanalytic concept describing how suppressed thoughts or traumas resurface in distorted forms.

Griots

West African oral historians and cultural memory-keepers preserving history through performance.

Signifyin' Tradition

A Black rhetorical practice involving indirect meaning and intertextual play.

Reproductive Futurism

A term critiquing how politics often prioritize reproductive futures, marginalizing non-normative identities.

The Politics of Representation

The idea that representation carries political and ideological consequences.

White Christian Savior Complex

A critical term for narratives positioning white individuals as primary moral rescuers for marginalized communities.