| A | B |
|---|
| Act | A unit or division of a play. Plays today may divided into one, two, or three acts. |
| Backstage | The entire area behind or beyond the stage, including the dressing rooms. Sometimes includes the "wings", or sides of the stage area. |
| Blocking | The process of determining the placement or location of actors on stage and planning their relative movement in a scene. |
| Box Office | Also known as the ticket booth, this is the enclosed area, usually found in or adjoining the lobby, where reserved (or "box") seating tickets are sold. |
| Business | A bit of action in a play, such as pouring a drink, tuning a radio, cleaning or dusting furniture -- used to establish a character, take up a pause in dialogue, or establish the scene. |
| Catwalk | A narrow walkway suspended between "fly floors", the raised areas from which scenery and drops were flown before the adoption of the counterweight system. |
| Climax | In the traditonal dramatic sense, the most powerful moment in a play, following which the denouement occurs. |
| Cue | The words or actions at which an actor is expected to deliver a line or a crew member is expected to perform some task. |
| Curtain Call | The final appearance of the cast, at the end of the play, to receive the applause of the audience. |
| Denouement | Also called "falling action", it is the part of the play following the climax, during which events and conflicts are brought to their final resolution. |
| Dialogue | Passages of speech between characters in a play. |
| Downstage | Stage direction: the front of the stage, or that portion of the stage closest to the audience. |
| Exit | Stage direction. The action of leaving the stage. |
| Fly | To suspend scenery, drops or lighting from a pipe batten hung from the grid. |
| Follow Spot | A high wattage, variable focus lighting instrument that is mounted so as to enable the operator follow performers on stage with the beam of light. |
| House | The entire theatre beyond the front of the stage. |
| Improvisation | A situation in which the actors are provided with background on the setting and characters and then spontaneously invent dialogue and action. |
| Libretto | The narrative dialogue or spoken part of a musical play, as opposed to the lyrics and the music. |
| Monologue | Long speech by a single actor. Similar to soliloquy. The speech is generally made by the actor as if speaking to himself and is revealing of his or her thoughts or feelings. |
| Mark | The place on stage, in relation to the set and scenery, where a player is to deliver a particular line or commence some action. During rehearsals, actors practice "finding their marks". |
| Off-Broadway | Term used to describe theatres and playhouses in New York City not located on or near Broadway in the maintstream theatre. Such playhouses came into being during the 1950's as a result of the high cost of production on Broadway. |
| Orchestra Pit | In modern theatres, the sunken area immediately in front of the stage, designed to accomodate musicians. |
| Pantomime | From the Latin pantomimus, or "player of many parts". Through misunderstanding it came to mean description of a story by means of expression and movement only. |
| Playbill | Form of theatrical adverdisement. Playbills can refer both to large posters used to promote a play or performance, as well as the program or booklet containing theatre news and information about a particular production. |
| Prompt | To give actors their line. The prompter follows the dialogue in a prompt book and, if an actor calls for his or her "line", the prompter provides a portion of the line to help the actor remember. |
| Properties | All physical items on stage with the exception of the scenery. This would include lamps, chairs, pens, paper, books, etc. Heavier items such as sofas, desks, etc., are really more a part of the scenery. |
| Set | The surroundings on stage, visisble to the audience, in which the action of a play develops. |
| Stage Left | The left side of the stage when facing the audience. |
| Stage Right | The right side of the stage when facing the audience. |
| Upstage | Stage direction referring to the back of the stage, or that part furthest from the audience. Originated from the fact that stages were originally raked at an upward angle from the front to the back of the stage |
