Theater Art Terminologies

Terminology	Meaning
Action	The movement or development of the plot or story in a play.
Acts	A part of a play defined by elements such as rising action, climax, and resolution.
Aesthetic	Branch of philosophy that studies the arts, and especially, the principles of beauty.
Arena	A theater with seats arranged around a central acting area.
Audience	The people who watch the performance; those for whom the performance is intended.
Auditorium	The part of the theater in which the audience sits; also called the house.
Black Box	A one-room theater, without a proscenium arch; interior is painted black, including walls, floor, and ceiling, and any drapes are also black.
Black Out	A lighting cue where all stage lights go off simultaneously.
Blocking	The path formed by the actor’s movement on stage, usually determined by the director with assistance from the actor and often written down in a script using commonly accepted theatrical symbols.
Call Back	A second audition.
Cast	The group of people selected to portray characters in a drama.
Characters	A person portrayed in a drama, novel, or other artistic piece.
Choreographer	A person who composes the sequence of steps and moves for a performance of dance.
Company Call	The full cast and crew are called for the rehearsal or meeting.
Conflict	The internal or external struggle between opposing forces, ideas, or interests that creates dramatic tension.
Concept Production	An analysis of the text that determines how it will be brought to life.
Costume	Clothes worn by the actors onstage.
Critique	Evaluation or judgment.
Cue	The words or action at which an actor is expected to deliver a line or perform another action. Also, a signal from the stage manager to the cast, stage crew, props manager, or lighting technician that a predetermined action—an entrance, sound effect, change in the set or lighting—is required.
Curtain Call	The appearance of the cast at the end of a play to receive applause from the audience.
Curtain Speech	A speech at the beginning or end of a performance, usually a short acknowledgment delivered in front of the closed main drape by the author, manager, or an actor.
Dialogue	Spoken conversation used by two or more characters to express thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Director	The person who is responsible for the overall interpretation of a dramatic work, bringing all the elements together to create a unified production.
Doubling	A technique of provoking a protagonist by a participant, for effect.
Drama	The art of composing, writing, acting, or producing plays; a literary composition intended to portray life or character or enact a story, usually involving conflicts and emotions exhibited through action and dialogue, designed for theatrical performance.
Dresser	Crew person assigned to help with quick changes of costume and general maintenance of costumes.
Drop Script	A sudden, surprising turn of events that gives a new twist to the plot of a play.
Down Stage	The part of a stage that is nearest the audience or camera.
Dry	To stop talking or speaking, or forget the lines.
Emotional Recall	The process of recalling a personal memory similar to that of your character in a particular scene in order to help you empathize on a personal level with the character.
Ensemble	The dynamic interaction and harmonious blending of the efforts of the many artists involved in the dramatic activity of theatrical production.
Fade	In stage lighting, a fade is a gradual increase or decrease of the intensity of light projected onto the stage.
Flexible Staging	Those that do not establish a fixed relationship between the stage and the house.
Focus	In lighting, the adjustment of the size and shape of a stage light and/or the direction in which it is aimed; in acting, the act of concentrating or staying in character.
Footlights	Row of lights set at floor level at the front of a stage, used to provide a part of the general illumination and to soften the heavy shadows produced by overhead lighting.
Genre	A category of literary or dramatic composition; drama is a literary genre. Drama is further divided into tragedy, comedy, farce, and melodrama, and these genres, in turn, can be subdivided.
Improvisation	The spontaneous use of movement and speech to create a character or object in a particular situation; acting done without a script.
Lighting	The placement, intensity, and color of lights to help communicate the environment, mood, or feeling.
Makeup	Costumes, wigs, and body paint used to transform an actor into a character.
Monologue	A long speech made by one actor; a monologue may be delivered alone or in the presence of others.
Motif	A repeated pattern—an image, sound, word, or symbol that comes back again and again within a particular story.
Motivation	The reason or reasons for a character’s behavior; an incentive or inducement for further action for a character.
Musical Director	They lead and prepare music groups for performances. They hold auditions, select music, provide training, and ensure the maintenance of all instruments. Music directors can work with bands, choirs, or orchestras.
Nonverbal Communication (Gestures)	Talks about gestures, body alignment, facial expression, character blocking, movement
Objective	It is what the character wants, or what the character's goal is.
Obstacle	A person or object that stands in the way of your character achieving his or her objective.
Open House	An event wherein people are invited to a building, such as a home, museum or theater, to take a look at its interior.
Pantomime	Acting without words.
Playwriting	The art of crafting a dramatized narrative for a theater production.
Plot	The events of a play or arrangement of action, as opposed to the theme.
Point of View	When the narrator reports the events of a scene without getting inside characters' private thoughts or feelings
Producer	The person who puts together a theatrical production, obtaining the financing, hiring the director and other stage personnel, supervising the budget, leasing rights and space, etc.
Production Concept	An analysis of the text that determines how it will be brought to life.
Props	Short for properties; any article, except costume or scenery, used as part of a dramatic production; any moveable object that appears on stage during a performance, from a telephone to a train.
Puppetry	The art of creating and manipulating puppets in a theatrical performance. A puppet is a figure (as of a person or animal), generally operated by hand, although there are many kinds of puppets.
Reader’s Theatre:	Dramatic presentation in which two or more oral readers interpret a characterized script with the aim of stimulating the audience to imaginatively experience the literature.
Rehearsal	A practice session in which the director works with cast and crew.
Role	The character portrayed by an actor in a drama.
Scene	A small section or portion of a play.
Script	The written dialogue, description, and directions provided by the playwright.
Set	The physical surroundings, visible to the audience, in which the action of the play takes place.
Setting	When and where the action of a play takes place.
Spotlight	A powerful stage lighting instrument which projects a bright beam of light onto a performance space.
Stage Business	Actions or behavior of an actor on stage used to give information, enhance character, define focus, or establish importance.
Stage Manager	Person in charge of everything that happens backstage.
Tactics	The methods by which your character fights for their goals.
Theatre	The imitation/representation of life, performed for other people; the performance of dramatic literature; drama; the milieu of actors and playwrights; the place that is the setting for dramatic performances.
Theme	The basic idea of a play; the idea, point of view, or perception that binds together a work of art.
Up Stage	To deliberately draw the audience’s attention away from another actor or actors by overacting, using flashy bits of business, or other means; the term originated from an actor purposefully positioning himself upstage of the other actors so that they must turn their backs on the audience to deliver their lines to him.
Warm-up	Full-body physical, facial, and vocal exercises that help actors get ready to perform
Wings	Offstage areas to the right and left of the acting/onstage area.