GLOSSARY OF THEATER TERMS THEATER AREAS HOUSE: Any area in the theater that is not considered playing space or backstage area (lobby, restrooms, aisles, auditorium, ticketing counters, balcony, etc.). FRONT OF HOUSE [FOH]: 1. Lobby: A room in a theatre used for public entry to the building from the outside. Ticket counters, concessions and restrooms are all usually located in the lobby. 2. Box Office: An office (in the outer lobby) where tickets are sold to the public. BACKSTAGE: 1. Wings: [Stage left and stage right] Areas that are part of a stage but offstage (out of sight of the audience), typically separated using black drapes. Wings consist of a wing curtain (leg) on each side of the stage and a teaser drape (border). It is used for performers preparing to enter, storage of sets for changes and as a stagehand work area. Wings also hide technical equipment, such as lights, which project from side of stage. 2. Dressing Room: Where cast members apply wigs, makeup and change into costumes. 3. Green Room: Where actors wait in when not needed onstage or in dressing rooms. 4. Fly Rail: A fly system is a system of ropes, counterweights, pulleys, and other such tools designed to allow a technical crew to quickly move set pieces, and lights on and off stage quickly by 'flying' them in from a large opening above the stage (fly space). SCENE SHOP: A theatre may have its own storage areas for old scenic and costume elements as well as lighting and sound equipment. The theatre may also include its own lighting, scenic, and costume shops. In these, each element of the show is constructed and prepared. STAGE MANAGER BOOTH / CONTROL BOOTH / TECH BOOTH: The section of the theatre designated for the operation of technical equipment, follow- spots, lighting and sound boards, and is sometimes the location of the stage manager's station. The control booth is located in the theatre in such a way that there is a good, unobstructed view of the playing area without causing any distraction to the audience (preventing distracting light leak or noise), and is generally an enclosed space. CATWALK: A catwalk is an elevated platform from which many of the technical functions of a theatre, such as lighting and sound, may be manipulated. PROSCENIUM ARCH: The portal that divides the audience from the stage. The audience directly faces the playing area, which is separated by a portal called the proscenium arch. The stage is often raised a few feet higher than the first rows of the audience. APRON: Part of stage between the curtain and the orchestra, in front of proscenium. ORCHESTRA: When live music is required is positioned in front and below of the stage in a pit. Some orchestra pits have lifts or elevators that raise the floor of the pit up to the same stage height. Often orchestra pit will be equipped with a removable pit cover, provides safety by eliminating the steep drop off and also increases the available acting area above. AUDITORIUM: A hall or seating area within hall where audience views a performance. SET: Complete stage setting for a scene or act, usually referring to the combination of flats, platforms, doors, windows, furniture and accessories. TYPES OF THEATERS / STAGES PROSCENIUM: “In front of the scene”, the traditional stage. It has an archway that creates a “picture- frame” effect around the stage opening. The grand drape opens/closes within this archway, and the scenery is generally upstage. THRUST STAGE: May also have a proscenium arch, but majority of the stage is downstage as an apron that may even go into the audience area, giving a three-quarter round feel to the performance area. ARENA STAGE: Theatre-in-the-round. A performance space with seating all round the performance area. Scenery is generally very limited for these stages due to sight lines so settings are implied rather than reproduced. AMPHITHEATRE: An auditorium, outdoors or indoors, circular, semicircular in shape, in which a central arena is more or less surrounded by rising banks of seats. BLACK BOX: A room (often painted black) that is intended for performance and lacks a permanent configuration, seating, or fixed performance area. Provision for performance lighting and props or curtains is often made. STAGE EQUIPMENT, SYSTEMS AND DRAPPERY FRONT CURTAIN: A curtain closing the proscenium opening, and raised (or drawn) to reveal the stage during an act or scene, or signal the beginning or end of an act or a performance. Curtains are called “Drapes”. BI-PARTING DRAPE: A curtain that opens from the center to either side. CYCLORAMA: Curtain at the rear of the performance area used to represent the sky or distant areas. It supplanted the Backdrop - A large curtain, usually painted to represent sky, a landscape, or other background, dropped upstage to form the back of a wing set and to mask the backstage space. DROP CURTAIN: A curtain that is painted or constructed in a manner that makes it a part of the scenic environment. BORDER CURTAIN / DROP CURTAIN / BORDERS (Bambalinas): A curtain used to define the top limit of the stage and to mask or hide lights and unused scenery and curtains. LEG CURTAIN (Patas): A curtain used to define the side limit of the stage and to mask or hide actors, lights, and unused scenery in the off stage area (wings). BATTEN / BAR (Varas): ELECTRICS PIPE (Puente): LIGHTING LADDERS (Torres): COUNTERWEIGHT: Weights (flame cut steel or cast iron) that are placed in counterweight arbors to balance the weight of loads hung on battens. The act of adding or removing weight from a set in order to achieve a balanced system. COUNTERWEIGHT RIGGING: A rigging system where the load is balanced by a counterweight so that only a small force is required to overcome friction & move the load. RIGGING: All of the hardware used to lift, lower, and hold performance equipment on or above a stage. Collectively, the ropes, wires, blocks, pulleys, pins, counterweights, and other pieces of equipment needed in the manipulation of scenery and stage drapery. A simple counterweight system is based on the principle of establishing a balanced set of weights that allow a stagehand to raise and lower various loads with minimal effort. LOAD-IN/LOAD-OUT: The process of, or time-period for, moving sets, props, and other hardware into a theatre before a production, and out after a production. LIGHTING INSTRUMENTS: 1. Ellipsoidal 2. Fresnel 3. Scoop 4. Spotlight (Leko: a trademarked type of ellipsoidal created by Strand Lighting) PLATFORM: A raised portion of the stage, generally made with plywood, used as another flat performance area. They can be raked (sit at an angle). FLAT: A vertical wall that is used to define the performance area, made with either wood or framed out and draped in muslin, a soft flat. These are always painted to give the desired look using stage painting. • Floor Plan • Stage Weights • Wings • Crew • Table Saw • Circular Manual Saw • Mitre Saw • Drill ACTING TERMS GLOSSARY STAGE MOVEMENT: Down Stage: The area of the stage that is closest to the audience. Upstage: The area of the stage furthest from the audience. Center Stage: The middle of the playing area Stage Left: The area of the stage to the performer's left, when facing downstage Stage Right: The area of the stage to the performer's right, when facing the audience. PROTAGONIST: The leading role. ANTAGONIST: A principal role, opposed to that of the protagonist or hero. CHARACTER ACTOR: An actor who specializes in roles that call for characteristics quite different from his/her. CHORUS: 1) A group of singers and/or dancers performing as a unit; group singing or dancing. 2) A group or a single actor who provides commentary on the action (Greek tragedy). ALTERNATE: One or two actors who alternate in a specific role / An understudy. AUDITION: A try-out hearing, competitive, of an actor or other performers seeking employment or to be cast in a play. A reading aloud of a dramatic work to prospective investors. CASTING: The process of the director choosing actors to perform in the play. BREAK CHARACTER: In acting, saying or doing something that is not in keeping with the character one is portraying (most accidental, as when actor forgets a line or when distracted by an occurrence in the audience or offstage). CUE / CUEING: The last words of one actor's spoken dialogue, which the next actor to speak needs as a signal to begin. CURTAIN CALL: The appearance of the actors at the end of a performance, to accept the applause of the audience. IMPROVISATION: A spontaneous form of theatre inspired by the audience and so is never the same show twice. Suggestions such as places, opening lines of dialogue, tv shows are supplied by the audience. Then suggestions are stretched to the wildest depths of imagination and explored by the players. (Improvise: to invent lines or business not in a script, to ad-lib). PANTOMIME: In acting, expressive movement of the body, without words (mime). DIRECTING TERMS GLOSSARY BALANCE: The equalization of the stage picture, composition, and action, so that the position and movements of the actors, the design of the set, lighting and costumes all are in a well- proportioned relationship. BLOCKING: The director's work of positioning actors onstage and setting their entrances, exits, and other movement, as in "to block a scene." The director usually does this by making notations in a working script, then uses these notes to work with the actors early in the rehearsal period. Blocking provides the framework for the movement in a scene, and is recorded in the prompt book by stage manager, assistant director, or director himself.