Test your basic knowledge |

Theatre Basics

Subject : performing-arts
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Russian playwright whose play The Lower Depths (1902) took look at people living in cellar of Moscow flophouse






2. French Enlightenment playwright; was an inventor and thinker who spent countless hours at the leading intellectual salons of France; most famous plays are The Barber of Seville - and The Marriage of Figaro - his plays reflect the attitudes of the Enl






3. Bandits discuss rival systems of goverment while waiting for an attack






4. Second part of a Noh play - protagonist performs a dance that expresses his or her concern






5. A popular form of stage entertainment from the 1880s to the 1940s; included a dozen or so slapstick comedy routines - song-and-dance numbers - magic acts and juggling or acrobatic performances






6. Term used to describe performances that mix theatre - visual arts - music - dance - gesture and rituals; often use multimedia effects - sounds and lighting effects to make a point and allow the audience to understand its deeper implications; often re






7. French physicist - mathematician - and philosopher - expressed the essence of Romanticism






8. By Swedish Playwright August Strindberg; fourteen-act play that follows the disconnected logic of a dream






9. Divided into fatalist - hilarious and existentialist






10. A big production number that usually receives a torrent of applause that literally stops the show






11. Closely tied to ritual - and it uses color - dance - song - and movements to exaggerate - stylize - and symbolically represent life






12. Estrangement; essentially the alienation effect






13. Light opera - differs from 'grand opera' because it has a frivolous - comic theme - some spoken dialogue - a melodramatic story - and usually a little dancing; The Mikado (1885)






14. First female theatre manager in London; was also an actor and singer; managed first theatre to have a box set; Olympic Theatre in London






15. Thought that inner truths could be hinted at only through symbols; sought to replace the specific and concrete with the suggestive and metaphorical; usually had little plot or action and tended to baffle the audience






16. Nigerian playwright that was executed for trying to protect the Ogoni people against encroachments of Shell oil company






17. Studied the history of class conflict






18. Book - music - and lyrics






19. A robust and spectacular version of Noh; named after the characters for 'song' - 'dance' - and 'skill'; created by a woman named Okuni - owner of a brothel






20. The first all-black show to pay at a top Broadway theatre






21. Sell over $1billion worth of tickets annually - majority of those are for musicals






22. Third part of a Noh play - the protagonist appears as a new self - and the cause of torment is resolved






23. Play that takes place in a mental institution - the audience sits on the stage with the actor-patients






24. Developed from the dance-prayers of Buddhist priests; has five possible subjects: the deities - the deeds of heroic samurai - women - insanity - and famous legends






25. The sung words






26. Musicals that feature a particular band's songs






27. Peking Opera was dramatically altered when:






28. Spoken lines of dialogue as well as the plot






29. Type of Islamic theatre which is created by lighting two-dimensional figures and casting their shadows on a screen; the audience watches the silhouettes while a narrator tells a story






30. A period of licentious gaudiness inspired by the elaborate styles that Charles II brought with him from the French Court






31. Greatest of the Sturm und Drang playwrights; was also a critic - journalist - painter - biologist - statesman - poet - novelist - philosopher - scientist - and the manager of the Duke of Weimar's playhouse






32. Kabuki borrowed many of these movements to make Kabuki acting highly stylized and almost puppet-like






33. The audience remains alienated from the performance so they could critically consider the play's themes






34. A German poet - director and playwright who challenged traditional ideas about theatre; became a communist after watching policement shoot 4 unarmed civilians; The Life of Galileo (1938) - Mother Courage and her Children (1939) & The Caucasian Chalk






35. Composed and produced by Bob Cole - lyrics by Billy Johnson; story of a con man and used minstrel stereotypes and spoofed Chinatown; in one scene a young black man sings about he and his date were denied entry to a nightclub cuz He was black and this






36. Writes the lyrics






37. French director who stage play The Butchers (1888) with real sides of beef infested with maggots






38. The realism of the play is expressed through lyrical language






39. Form of drama that dominated theatre in India for a thousand years; named for the ancient Indian language in which its plays are performed; combine the natural and the supernatural - the believable and unbelievable






40. Goethe's most famous Romantic play






41. Holds that human beings are naturally alone - without purpose or mission - in a universe that has no God






42. The audience remains alienated from the performance so they could critically consider the play's themes






43. Theatre was not seen as being of value to society - so plays were not an important part of:






44. Comic interludes performed during the intermissions of opera






45. Life has no purpose and they confused and antagonized audiences by refusing to adhere to a coherent set of principles - mirroring the madness of the world






46. Most famous of the absurdist playwrights; best considered a fatalist - although work is sometimes hilarious and can ask existential questions; Endgame (1957) Krapp's Last Tape (1958) and Happy Days (1961); Waiting for Godot (1953)






47. Elmer Rice; about a man named Mr. Zero Who is fired from his job and replaced by an adding machine






48. A true-to-life interior containing a room or rooms with the fourth wall removed so that the audience has the feeling of looking in on the characters' private lives






49. The artist imposes his own internal state onto the outside world itself; expressionism is a subjective account of an objective perception; expressionist plays use deliberate set distortion






50. Used giant puppets and actors to enact parables denouncing the Vietnam War and materialism