Understanding Terminology That Describes Theater

In any theatrical production, the person who is responsible for all of the elements to go off smoothly and in the proper order is the stage manager. While the least creative position among the production crew's leadership, the stage manager is also the most necessary. The stage manager is the conduit between the director and all the technical functions in a play, and "calls" the show by announcing when various elements can go off.

When actors are given directions for movement, the stage is divided into regions so that everyone goes to the same place. These regions are always determined based on the viewpoint of the actor. As the actor looks at the audience, "stage right" is to the actor's right. This means that, from the audience's point of view, they are moving to the left side of the stage.

In every play, as it is written and often in a playbill, a cast list is necessary to describe the characters and the actors needed to play them. In Shakespeare's time, the Latin phrase "dramatis personae," meaning the "dramatic people," was used to indicate such a list. Today the Latin terminology is not universal, but still in widespread use.

William Shakespeare's plays, whether comedies or tragedies, typically are divided into five separate acts. This was based off of Roman structures, and was the popular format in Renaissance drama. This structure was formally described and analyzed by the German author Gustav Freytag in his 1863 Die Technik des Dramas.

Theater "in the round" is a format which features the audience sitting in a circle around the stage. This creates a different environment for the performers and audience, which forces a play to be performed in a different manner than usual. This approach has typically been used in more modern theater to differentiate it from film.

The proscenium arch is the name for the outer framing of the performance area at a theater that demarcates the performing area for the audience. The physical arch was a necessity for centuries, creating a frame for the audience's view of the stage. Beginning in the twentieth century, many theater artists began performing in spaces without a proscenium, and new forms of theater developed that openly broke down the "fourth wall" between the performers and the audience.

"Blocking" refers to predetermined movements by the actors. As a company begins to rehearse a play, the director will give the actors their blocking in addition to their lines. This ensures that actors are in a particular space at a certain time. This makes the actors' lives easier because a scene should be the same every time. It also ensures that the audience can see what is going on without any of the actors being covered up by another.

Kabuki theater began in Japan, near Kyoto, in the 17th century. It features complex stage design and elaborate makeup. Traditionally, a kabuki performance could last for an entire day. Such lengthy performances happen even today.

The ancient Greeks largely invented the Western dramatic tradition, but their own style was highly specific in the nature of its performance. All shows were held in open amphitheaters with all male ensembles performing in masks. Stories were also highly regimented, with a chorus being required to explain events and tragedies and comedies being presented as entirely separate kinds of work.

The term "upstage" refers to the back of the stage, furthest away from the audience. Before theaters began using auditorium-style seating, where the audience's seats are arranged in rows with each row progressively higher, the audience would stand or sit on a flat floor. Stages were often built on an angle, with the rear of the stage at a higher elevation than the front, so that audiences could see what was happening at the back of the stage. When an actor is told by the director to move "upstage," he is being told to walk towards the rear of the stage.