D R A M A D E F I N I T I O N S

Play: a general term for a work of dramatic literature, designed for performance on stage

Playwright: a writer of plays

Convention: Any feature of a literary work that has become standardized over time

Script: the written text of a play

Act: a major division of the play, usually to accommodate changes in time, setting,

characters onstage, or mood

Scene: a subdivision of an act; scenes usually change when the location of the action

shifts or a new character enters

Plot: an arrangement of incidents in a story that shapes the action and gives the

story focus

-- pyramidal pattern: tri-division of a plot

1)Rising action: complication creates conflict for the protagonist

2)Climax: turning point, where rising action reverses to become...

3)Falling action: the resolution of conflicts and complications

Subplot: secondary action of a story, complete in its own right, that reinforces or

contrasts with the main plot

Exposition: the presentation of necessary background information, often at the beginning

Dramatic Exposition: the presentation through dialogue of information about events that

occurred before the action of a play or that occurs offstage or

between stage actions

Dramatic Irony: when the reader/audience realizes something that the speaker or character is

not aware of

Prologue: the opening speech or dialogue of a play that usually gives the exposition

Foreshadowing: the introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that

suggest what is to come later

Stage Directions: a playwright’s written instructions about how the actors are to move

and behave in a play

Proscenium Arch: An arched structure over the front of the stage from which a curtain

often hangs; separates the audience from the action

Arena Stage: A stage surrounded on all sides by the audience; actors make exits and entrances through the aisles

Apron Stage: part of the stage extending in front of the proscenium arch

Environmental Theater: theater not restricted to a stage separated from the audience;

occupies the whole of a performance space

Mise-en-scene: the stage setting of a play, including the use of scenery and props

Spectacle: the costumes and scenery in a drama -- the elements that appeal to the eye

Ingenue: the innocent or naive young woman character (stereotype)

Director: the person who oversees the play’s performance, controlling interpretations,

movement, pacing, lighting, and scenery

History Play: a drama set in a time other than that in which it was written

Didactic Play: a play designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson

Blocking: planning, controlling the movement of players on the stage

Dramatic Irony: A discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the

reader/audience knows to be true

Melodrama: dramatic literature that relies on implausible events and sensational

actions for its effects (ex: soap operas)

Comedy: a work intended to interest, involve, and amuse the reader or audience, in

which no terrible disaster occurs and that ends happily for the main characters

-- Satiric Comedy: type of comedy that ridicules a folly or vice in order to expose it

or correct it

-- Romantic Comedy: involves a love affair that encounters various obstacles but

overcomes them to end in a happy union

-- High Comedy: refers to verbal wit (puns)

-- Low Comedy: associated with physical action and less intellectual (3 Stooges)

-- Farce: low comedy based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities

-- Slapstick: dependent upon physical movement more than situation

-- Comic Relief: a humorous scene that alleviates tension in a serious work

Tragedy: a type of drama that recounts an individual’s downfall; high to low

Dialogue: the verbal exchange between characters

Monologue: a long speech made by one speaker

Epilogue: a final speech added to the end of a play

Soliloquy: a speech in which a character, alone onstage, utters her/his thoughts aloud

Aside: a speech directed to the audience that supposedly is not audible to the other

characters onstage at the time

Suspension of Disbelief: an audience’s willingness to accept the world of the drama

as reality during the course of a play

Unity: the sense that the events of a play and the actions of the characters follow one

another naturally to form one complete action

Empathy: the sense of feeling with a character, as opposed to feeling for a character

Catharsis: the release of emotions (pity, fear) by the audience at the end of a tragedy