Drama Glossary

theatre

script

actor

stage

audience

producer

director

designers: set, lights, costumes

stage manager

technicians

grips

wardrobe

house staff

business staff

publicity

proscenium stage

arena stage

thrust stage

raked stage

upstage/downstage

stage right/stage left

centerstage

apron

mise-en-scene : scenery, properties, set pieces, lighting

imitation

role-playing

ritual

dramatic structure

Dionysus

Apollo

City Dionysia

satyr play

tragedy

archon

trilogy

comedy

choregus

tragic structure:

prologos (prologue)

parados (entry of chorus)

episodia (episodes)

stasima (choral odes)

paean (hymn to gods)

epode (final ode)

exodos (final scene)

chorus

Thespis (6th c. bc)

Aeschylus (524-456 bc)

Sophocles (496-406 bc)

Euripides (480-406 bc)

Aristophanes (450?-385? bc)

Aristotle (384-322 bc): three unities -- time, place, plot

Tudor period (Henry VII 1485-1509, Henry VIII 1509-47, Edward VI 1547-53, Mary I 1553-58)

Elizabethan period (Elizabeth I 1558-1603)

Jacobean period (James I 1603-12)

interludes

school drama

University Wits

Inns of Court

pit or yard

groundlings

boxes

galleries

thrust or platform stage

forestage or mainstage

rear doors

discovery space

second level

third level

trap doors

acting companies

shareholders

hirelings

apprentices

choir boys

Lord Chamberlain's Men/The King's Men

The Globe 1599-1613

Blackfriars Theatre

history or chronicle plays

comedies

farces

festive rituals

satire

comedy of humors

comedy of manners

romantic or pastoral comedy

Feast of Fools

tragedies

Senecan revenge tragedy

romantic tragedy

historic tragedy

problem plays

stock characters

miles gloriosus

shrew

fool

idiotes (malcontents)

pedant

humor character (see comedy of humors)

"calumniator believed"

master/servant relationship

uncertain identity

transvestism

twinning

hallucination

blank verse: "Marlowe's mighty line"

soliloquy

aside

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)