Drama and Theatre Arts (and Film)

Items

• multiculturalism

  The inclusion and representation of diverse cultural perspectives and traditions in performance.
• music in theatre

  When music is used in theatre as a supporting element to the production, to enhance the mood or ambiance.
• Musical Theatre

  A genre combining spoken dialogue, songs, and dance to tell a story.
• Naturalism

  A late 19th-century style in the arts depicting life with scientific objectivity. It’s a form of realism that focuses on how environment, heredity, and social conditions affect human behaviour – like a “slice of life”.
• New Wave cinema

  Post-WWII movements, e.g., French Nouvelle Vague (late 1950s to 1980s), emphasising auteur authority and innovation, rejecting traditional ways of filmmaking.
• non-diegetic sound

  Sound that does not originate from the story world, such as background music or narration. The character cannot hear it.
• non-linear narrative

  A storytelling structure that does not follow chronological order, common in modern theatre and film.
• objective

  What a character wants to achieve in a scene or play (their intention).
• obstacle

  Something that stands in the way of a character achieving their objective.
• offstage

  The part of the stage out of view of the audience (backstage).
• onstage

  The part of a theater, specifically the stage, where the performance or action takes place fully visible to the audience.
• opposite prompt side (O.P. side)

  The right-hand side of the stage from the actor’s point of view (i.e., stage right) / the side opposite the prompt desk, sometimes referred to as the off-prompt side.
• over-the-shoulder shot (OTS)

  Taken from behind one character’s shoulder, framing another subject, often used in dialogue.
• overhead / bird’s- eye view / God’s eye view

  A shot from directly above, giving a godlike or detached perspective.
• pan

  Horizontal movement of the camera from a fixed position, scanning the scene side to side.
• pantomime

  Acting that uses gesture, facial expression, and movement rather than speech to convey meaning. Also, a British genre of musical performance marked by exaggerated caricatures, audience interaction, and comedic retellings of popular fairy tales.
• performance analysis

  The analysis (and methodology for analysis) of live theatre performances as experienced in person.
• Performance Art

  A live art form combining theatre, visual art, and conceptual experimentation / challenges definitions of “theatre” / often conceptual and site- specific.
• performance studies

  An interdisciplinary field examining cultural, social, and other everyday contexts and human behaviours as "performances" by applying dramaturgical lenses for analysis.
• periaktoi

  A three-sided structure built from narrow flats mounted on a rotating base. Each side is painted with different scenery, and the structure is rotated to indicate a scene or locale change / an ancient Greek technique still used in more stylistic productions and even children’s theatre.
• Phenomenology

  A philosophical and theoretical discipline focussed on studying subjective human experiences of real-world phenomena.
• Physical Theatre

  Uses movement, gesture, and the body as the primary language of storytelling rather than words.
• playwright

  The author of a play (the person who writes the script).
• point of view (POV) shot

  A camera shot that shows what a character is seeing from their perspective (in film).
• Poor Theatre

  Theorised by Jerzy Grotowski, Poor Theatre refers to a style of theatre- making and performance that privileges the performer and their body as the main means of expression and invests in the performer- audience relationship and imagination over costumes, props, décor, and theatre technology.