| A | B |
|---|
| drama | a work of literature designed to be performed for an audience |
| comedy | a humerous work of drama |
| setting | the time and location of the story |
| theme | the lesson or moral of the story |
| scene | a division of an act into smaller parts |
| antagonist | the character who opposes the main character |
| playwright | the author of a play |
| dialogue | conversation between two or more characters |
| soliloquy | a monologue in which a character speaks his or her private thoughts aloud and appears to be unaware of the audience |
| tragedy | a serious work of drama in which the hero suffers catastrophe or serious misfortune, usually because of his own actions |
| plot | the sequence of actions and events in a literary work |
| act | a division within a play, much like the chapters in a novel |
| conflict | the struggle or problems within a story |
| protagonist | the central character of the play |
| foil | a minor character whose traits contrast sharply with those of the main character |
| stage directions | italicized comments that identify parts of the setting or the use of props or costumes, give further information about a character, or provide background information |
| monologue | a long speech spoken by a character to himself, another character, or to the audience |
| aside | lines that are spoken by a character directly to the audience |
| irony | when the audience or reader knows something that the characters in the story do not know |
| tragic hero | a protagonist with a fatal flaw which eventually leads to his demise |
