Theatre Glossary (Mike Green)

Set; the arrangement of scenic elements (e.g., curtains, flats, drops, platforms), properties, and lights to represent the locale in a dramatic performance.

The written dialogue, description, and directions provided by the playwright.

A sense of knowing and appreciating oneself; an awareness of one's potential, values, strengths, and weaknesses; an understanding of one's image as perceived by others.

Heightened awareness of physical sensations and emotional states.

Sensory perceptions elicited from past experiences.

The time and place in which the dramatic action occurs.

Adherence to those beliefs, values, and behaviors deemed acceptable by the group.

All visual elements of production (scenery, properties, lighting, costumes, makeup, physical movement, dance).

A free, direct, immediate response to an experience.

The process of improvisationally making an informal play based on a story. Young children are often guided by a leader who tells or reads a story while the children take on all the roles, working in their own spaces. Older children generally assume specific roles and collaborate to dramatize a story, often interchanging roles and experimenting with ideas.

This form of theatre combines the art of storytelling with improvisational acting. Using stories from the oral tradition (folk and fairy tales, myths, and legends), story theatre allows the characters to narrate in the third person, speak the dialogue in the first person, and carry out physical actions called forth in the story.

The characteristic manner of speaking, writing, designing, performing, or directing, Style is a relative term that encompasses literary movements (e.g., romanticism, realism, naturalism), the method of individual playwrights, or anything that displays unique, definable properties in construction or execution. Stylized usually means anything which deviates from whatever is considered realistic at a given time. It is possible to have a dramatic style (provided by the playwright) and a theatrical style (provided by the director and collaborators).

The unspoken meaning or intention behind the actions and dialogue of a text or performance which is implied largely by nonverbal behavior and subtleties in vocal qualities.