cross-cast

cross-cast (third-person singular simple present cross-casts, present participle cross-casting, simple past and past participle cross-cast)

cross-casts (present singular third-person)
cross-casting (participle present)
cross-cast (participle past)
cross-cast (past)

(theater) To cast an actor of the opposite gender to play a part.


well firmed

en-adj

well firmed (comparative more well firmed, superlative most well firmed)

more well firmed (comparative)
most well firmed (superlative)

(theater, dated) Well prepared, having thoroughly memorized one's part.


jeune premier

en-noun

jeune premier (plural jeunes premiers or jeune premiers)

jeunes premiers (plural)
jeune premiers (plural)

Unadapted borrowing from French jeune premier; first used in the early 1800s.

ubor

(theater) actor who plays young hero/lover roles


Macbeth trap

Named after Shakespeare's play Macbeth, in which such a contrivance could be used to bring the ghost of Banquo onto the stage.

(theater) A kind of stage trapdoor rigged to drop below floor level and slide to one side.


Macready pause

Named after William Macready (1793–1873), English actor.

(theater) A brief pause during the delivery of a speech in a play, to make the speaking seem more natural.


cue-to-cue

(theater, music, film) Of a rehearsal: moving from one cue to the next, so that lighting etc. can be tested, without rehearsing scenes in their entirety.


make an entrance

en-verb

make an entrance (third-person singular simple present makes an entrance, present participle making an entrance, simple past and past participle made an entrance)

makes an entrance (present singular third-person)
making an entrance (participle present)
made an entrance (participle past)
made an entrance (past)
make one's entrance (alternative)


DLP

(theater) Initialism of dead letter-perfect: having learned one's lines with perfect accuracy.


four-waller

With their audience's desires carefully measured and films made to match those desires, four-wallers then saturated local television markets with advertisements for their movies […]

2009, Joshua Blu Buhs, Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend, page 155:

(film, theater) A company that rents a cinema or theater under a four-wall arrangement.


regie-book

From German Regiebuch, from Regie (“direction (of theatrical work)”) + Buch (“book”).

The director's action plot, prompt-book or regie-book — whichever he calls it — shows diagrammatically the relative positions and movements of the performers throughout the play.

1938, Theatre Arts Monthly, volume 22, page 513:

[…] he writes in the margins and blank pages all important statements made by the director about motivations and characterizations, about the cutting or adding of words or lines, the actors' comment on characters and dialogue — in short, the regie-book is a complete picture of what happened at rehearsals.

(theater) A director's notebook detailing the development of a production.


dress the house

dress the house (third-person singular simple present dresses the house, present participle dressing the house, simple past and past participle dressed the house)

dresses the house (present singular third-person)
dressing the house (participle present)
dressed the house (participle past)
dressed the house (past)

[…] to pay this tax through inviting a certain class of the public, who are always invited, to theatres of standing to dress the house.

1917, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), page cccxlvi:

[…] we critics were not his fellow-guests, but simply deadheads whose business it was to "dress the house" and write puffs.

1931, Bernard Shaw, Our Theatre in the Nineties, volume 24, page 246:

The box office in a reserved seat house and the ushers in a non-reserved situation are responsible for dressing the house—that is, seating the audience so as to elicit the maximum response, […]

1979, Lawrence Stern, School and Community Theater Management: A Handbook for Survival:

(theater) To position oneself, or others, so as to make the auditorium appear fuller than it really is.


Boston version

If a routine was on the blue side — unsuitable for families — performers might want to develop a Boston version so they could play the Sunday school circuit.

2005, Rosemarie Ostler, Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers:

Some theaters put on censored “Boston versions” of shows. The Watch and Ward Society successfully stamped out what it considered indecency in Boston's public life. But this movement had unintended results.

2010, Christine Zuchora-Walske, Internet Censorship: Protecting Citizens or Trampling Freedom?:

(theater) A bowdlerized version of a play to appeal to puritanical sensibilities.


citronella circuit

Coinage attributed to the actress Tallulah Bankhead. Citronella is an insect repellent that one might expect to use outdoors in summer.

They either starve, take up smuggling or invade the citronella circuit in a beat-up revival.

1951, LIFE, volume 30, number 26, page 94:

We don't mean just the usual fare of summer stock offerings, although it is certainly pleasant to see a recent Broadway hit or view a tryout for the Big Time on the so-called citronella circuit.

(theater, informal) The round of summer stock theater performances.


coffee and cakes

Most of our actors are working on the cooperative basis. Do you know what that means? It means you get part of it if it comes in, and in a lot of cases that means coffee and cakes.

1932, United States. Congress. Senate. Finance Committee, Revenue Act of 1932, Hearings:

Past jobs on air have paid coffee and cakes here.


groundrow

groundrows (plural)
ground row (alternative)

(theater) A low, narrow flat used to suggest the presence of a building, fence, hedge, etc.


skycloth

(theater) A backcloth depicting the sky.


scène à faire

(theater, literary criticism) A scene which is demanded by the progression of the plot so far; an indispensable culminating scene.


mainpiece

mainpieces (plural)
main-piece (alternative)

A typical evening at the principal Dublin theatres could extend over five or six hours and consisted of a mainpiece, frequently with a prologue and epilogue, followed by one, and occasionally two, afterpieces.

1993, John C Greene, Gladys LH Clark, The Dublin Stage, 1720–1745, page 72:

Drury Lane and Covent Garden put on mainly spoken plays; the all-sung operas staged there were usually afterpieces in English, though operas with spoken dialogue also appeared among the mainpieces in various guises, including ballad opera and burletta.

2007, Michael Burden, edited by Moody & O'Quinn, British Theatre 1730-1830, page 205:

(theater) The primary play or other work performed at an evening's entertainment at the theatre, as opposed to smaller introductory or additional works.


return piece

(theater) Synonym of jog (“type of flat”).


at liberty

(euphemistic, theater) Unemployed; out of work.


flicker wheel

(theater) A rotating perforated disc that gives a flickery effect to light coming from behind it.


poison at the box office

(film, theater) An unappealing play or film that sells very few tickets.


in one

(theater) Performed downstage between the frontmost pieces of scenery.


park and bark

(theater, slang) Denoting a performer who speaks or sings while stationary, without moving or dancing.


ghost character

en-noun

ghost character (plural ghost characters)

Beside this detailed information which Hall provides about Matthew Gough, Shakespeare's Gough is a ghost character. There is, indeed, no way in which an audience could pick up who he is when he appears only to be killed immediately.

2003, Catherine M. S. Alexander, The Cambridge Shakespeare Library, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 231:

A ‘ghost’ character is one who is marked as present on stage, but given no lines to speak: many editors consider the inclusion of these characters to be an oversight on the part of the writer or printer, and so remove them from modern stage directions; […]

2010, David Coleman, John Webster, Renaissance Dramatist, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 68:

Joseph A. Porter's discussion of the ‘ghost character’ of Valentine in Romeo and Juliet is also illuminating: Porter describes Valentine as a ‘symptom or by-product of Mercutio's transformation’ from rival lover (in Shakespeare's source) to friend […]

2014, Lena Cowen Orlin, Othello, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 277:

(drama, literature) A character who is mentioned as appearing on stage, but who does not do anything, and who seems to have no purpose.


diazoma

From Ancient Greek δῐάζωμᾰ (dĭázōmă, “girdle”).

der

(theater, Ancient Greece) A corridor that divided sections of an Ancient Greek theatre.


tableau curtain

en-noun

tableau curtain (plural tableau curtains)

(theater, chiefly in the plural) A stage curtain of a kind that rises diagonally, not revealing the entire stage.


cough and a spit

Ray Wise managed his back-to-black-hair role before joining Tim Robbins in Bob Roberts and James Marshall squeezed in his cough and a spit between Gladiator and joining the big boys (Nicholson, Cruise) in A Few Good Men […]

Everybody gargling madly and mugging up their lines as though Shakespeare himself was out front. Don't know why I bothered, I only had a cough and a spit.

1998, Ken Whitmore, Alfred Bradley, The Final Twist: A Play, page 20:


Death Trail

(US, theater, derogatory) A grueling and often unprofitable tour of small theaters from Chicago to the West Coast.


go to Cain's

en-verb

go to Cain's (third-person singular simple present goes to Cain's, present participle going to Cain's, simple past went to Cain's, past participle gone to Cain's)

goes to Cain's (present singular third-person)
going to Cain's (participle present)
went to Cain's (past)
gone to Cain's (participle past)

From the name of a company in New York City that rented out props and costumes.

[…] Norma Terris (who, so far as we had known, was born in Show Boat and went to Cain's with it) […]

1934, Stage, volume 11, numbers 7-12, page 7:

(US, theater, slang, dated) To close a show.


thrust stage

(theater) A stage that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its upstage end.


Regietheater

Borrowed from German Regietheater (“director's theater”).

bor

If nothing he [Patrice Chéreau] did for the screen had the genre-shaking impact of his stage work — his 1976 “Ring” cycle at Bayreuth helped usher in an era of Regietheater, or director’s theater — he did raise eyebrows with the sexually explicit “Intimacy” (2001), starring all of Mark Rylance, the corseted Olivia in the “Twelfth Night” that just ended its Broadway run.

2014 February 28, Rachel Saltz, “It Takes a Funeral: So Much Angst”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(theater) The modern practice of allowing a director freedom to diverge from the original intentions of the playwright or operatist, for example by changing the geographical and chronological setting, or by adapting the work to highlight issues of race and gender.


11 o'clock number

en-noun

11 o'clock number (plural 11 o'clock numbers)

So called because, in the days when musical performances began at 8:30 p.m., such a song would occur around 11 p.m.

(theater) A showstopping song that occurs late in the second act of a two-act musical, often signifying a moment of revelation or change of heart of a lead character.


three-sheet

en-verb

three-sheet (third-person singular simple present three-sheets, present participle three-sheeting, simple past and past participle three-sheeted)

three-sheets (present singular third-person)
three-sheeting (participle present)
three-sheeted (participle past)
three-sheeted (past)

Now I don't think a man ought to be a spendthrift in order to be a good fellow, but a ball player getting four thousand a year shouldn't three-sheet himself every time he lets go of a quarter.

1916 March 11, Charles E. Van Loan, “His Folks”, in Saturday Evening Post:

The Ballet Theatre surprised everybody. This top-heavy art trust, three-sheeted as “the greatest collaboration in ballet history,” functioned prodigiously through a long three weeks' sprint.

1939, Modern Music, volumes 17-18, page 187:

The leading man often wore a blond wig in some parts, and his entrance through the center door was a studied art, surpassed only by his "three-sheeting" ability in front of the post office at mail time.

1972, William L. Slout, Theatre in a Tent:

[…] where he could afford the best seats in the theater, and where the stories thrilled him to the core, and the sentiments of the characters could be understood and approved by every true-born Englishman, where the actors tore their lungs and three-sheeted their passions for his exclusive benefit.

1973, N. Allardyce, British Drama, page 277:

(theater) To exaggerate, hype up, or show off.


blackout skit

(theater) A skit after which all the lights are extinguished.


exeunt omnes

From Latin exeunt omnēs (“they all exit; exit all”).

bor

(theater) In plays, an instruction that all actors should leave the stage.

kaikki poistuvat

in plays, an instruction that all actors should leave the stage


rhesis

Such speeches (like the rheses) have the distinction of length, often exceeding one hundred lines; they give the impression that for a time dramatic effect is suspended, and, as a substitute, the recognised features of Epic Poetry supply a new interest.

1890, Richard Green Moulton, The Ancient Classical Drama: A Study in Literary Evolution, page 145:

The chorus or chorus-coryphaeus is followed by a rhesis of the actor, followed in its turn by a stichic dialogue A/actor which usually culminates in a stichomythia.

1975, Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, Festival, Comedy and Tragedy: The Greek Origins of Theatre, page 147:

A scheme that includes tetrameter sets off the rhesis from dialogue even more starkly , but it considerably enhances the potential of actor-chorus dialogue to be an effective balance to the long speech.

1982, Ann N. Michelini, Tradition and Dramatic Form in "The Persians" of Aeschylus, page 60:

(theater, Ancient Greece) A passage of text in a play.


countercross

(theater) The crossing of the stage by two actors going in opposite directions.


countercross

en-verb

countercross (third-person singular simple present countercrosses, present participle countercrossing, simple past and past participle countercrossed)

countercrosses (present singular third-person)
countercrossing (participle present)
countercrossed (participle past)
countercrossed (past)

(theater) To cross the stage in opposite directions.


dog town

dog towns (plural)
dogtown (alternative)

He's rehearsing his first-born for a dog-town opening next week.

1917, W. J. Thorold, Arthur Hornblow, Perriton Maxwell, Theatre Magazine, volume 25, page 42:

And speaking of Mr. Sloan, I note that he believes Chicago is taking New Haven's place as a dog-town.

1923, The Drama, volumes 14-15, page 91:

(theater, colloquial) A town at which a play is performed for a less important audience to gauge the likelihood of general success.


Chitlin' Circuit

(historical, theater) A collection of venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States where African-American performers were accepted despite racial segregation.


bald-headed row

en-noun

bald-headed row (plural bald-headed rows)

(theater, slang) The front row of a theatre, traditionally occupied by elderly men and playboys.


proppy

en-adj

proppy (comparative proppier, superlative proppiest)

proppier (comparative)
proppiest (superlative)

Because Magnolias is such a proppy show, speedy changes are a challenge.

On the other hand, 'Othello was very proppy,' recalls Donnellan, 'with teacups and glasses and furniture.

1991, Simon Reade, Cheek by Jowl: Ten Years of Celebration, Oberon Books, →ISBN:

It's a very proppy show with thirty chairs, pots and pans to set, paintbrushes, and glasses which need to be washed and cleaned for the café scene.


space work

(acting) The skill of handling imaginary objects and locations as part of a performance, especially in improv acting.


fluff one's lines

en-verb

fluff one's lines (third-person singular simple present fluffs one's lines, present participle fluffing one's lines, simple past and past participle fluffed one's lines)

fluffs one's lines (present singular third-person)
fluffing one's lines (participle present)
fluffed one's lines (participle past)
fluffed one's lines (past)

(drama) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: To stumble over or otherwise misspeak one's lines.


boat truck

(theater) A low wheeled platform used to move scenery.


front curtain

(theater) The curtain or curtains at the very front of the stage, separating it from the house.


proscenium curtain

en-noun

proscenium curtain (plural proscenium curtains)


main rag

(theater, slang) Synonym of front curtain.


fourth wall joke

fourth wall joke (plural fourth wall jokes)

fourth wall jokes (plural)
fourth-wall joke (alternative)
4th wall joke (alternative)

(theater, film, television) A joke that intentionally draws attention to the illusion of separation between the audience and the fiction itself.


logie

Said to be from the name of the inventor, David Logie.

This is most probably imitated by a bit of hollowed out pewter, polished in various concavities, and called, in the terms of theatrical jewelry, a Logie.

1847, Albert Smith, The Natural History of the Ballet-girl, page 14:

(theater, archaic) A piece of fake jewellery, typically made from zinc.


hold the book

en-verb

hold the book (third-person singular simple present holds the book, present participle holding the book, simple past and past participle held the book)

holds the book (present singular third-person)
holding the book (participle present)
held the book (participle past)
held the book (past)

In a little time, and you'll cease to hold the book to men and women; no, you'll have to prompt nothing but earthquakes, and give the word to nobody but dragons and flying fish.

1860, Douglas Jerrold, Blanchard Jerrold, The Brownrigg Papers, page 133:

Here we are! now then," he said, as they entered the theatre, "clear the stage, all ready for the first piece. Who'll hold the book? Here, Puzzleton, you've nothing to do, just prompt will you, like a good fellow?

1869, Hawley Smart, Breezie Langton, volume 1, page 190:


on the book

That was the “set-up” in the Venner Repertory Company, and I must state that they needed very few prompts, even on the first nights of which we had two a week! I was “on the book” , gave all the “lighting and effects signals” […]

1954, Harald Melvill, Theatrecraft: The A to Z of Show Business, page 103:

I was on the book in the prompt corner on stage right.

2004, Michael Hallifax, Let Me Set the Scene, page 340:


keep the book

keep the book (third-person singular simple present keeps the book, present participle keeping the book, simple past and past participle kept the book)

keeps the book (present singular third-person)
keeping the book (participle present)
kept the book (participle past)
kept the book (past)

[…] or people with very specific responsibilities such as keeping the book or prompting (as in opera).

2018, Peter Maccoy, Essentials of Stage Management:

(theater) Synonym of hold the book (“to act as prompter”).


the ghost walks

An allusion to a scene in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.

Ask the regular staff at any theatre when the ghost walks and the chances are that the answer will be — on a Friday, ie pay night (unless that happens to be on a Thursday!).

2010, John Harper, editor, Tales of Haunted Places:

(theater, humorous) The manager comes to pay the company's salaries.


five and nine

From the product numbering used by the Leichner cosmetics company.

Not much "beautiful dignity" about her now! she thought, looking at her smudged eyes and the tracks her tears had made in carefully applied five and nine. Her black tin box of makeup — her most treasured possession — sat before her, […]

1995, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Marking Time, page 263:

[…] before many years had passed I would be plastered in the greasy 'five and nine' cosmetics beloved of the theatrical profession.

2014, Evadne Hinge, The Naked Doctor, page 69:

The sticks of Leichner were notoriously hard and difficult to spread. […] In theatre dressing rooms the hot bulbs surrounding the actors' mirrors were often streaked with five and nine, which helped to soften the stuff.

2016, James Hayes, Shouting in the Evenings, page 80:

(theater, informal) Basic facial greasepaint makeup.


scene pack

(theater) A set of flats stored together for use in a particular scene.


unity of place

(theater, literature) The classical unity that states that a play should exist in a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.


unity of action

(theater, literature) The classical unity that states that a play should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots.


propman

(theater) A man responsible for looking after the props in a theater


propwoman

(theater) A woman responsible for looking after the props in a theater


props master

(theater, television, film) Clipped compound of property master.


property master

en-noun

property master (plural property masters)

(film, theater) The person in a film or theatrical production responsible for the props.


prop master

“We’re doing our job if you don’t notice it,” Catherine Miller, the prop master for the series, said in a phone interview last week.

2022 May 4, Gina Cherelus, “The Stories Behind Some of the Weird Stuff on ‘Severance’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

(film, theater) Clipped compound of property master.


stage business

(theater, idiomatic, term of art) Actions performed by an actor on stage done for dramatic effect; especially, action carried out with a prop or piece of clothing, usually away from the focus of the scene, with or without any dialogue.


god mic

(On God mic.) We worked through this — AUDREY. I know and I want to be a team player. I want to be one of the guys and all that, but there are, what, eight hundred people coming tomorrow night and I don't know what the fuck I'm doing!

2015 May 15, Nicky Silver, Too Much Sun, Dramatists Play Service, Inc., →ISBN, page 9:

COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in September 2016. ... Scene titles: The scene titles are probably best projected but they might be announced before each scene by somebody with a God mic.

2018 January 24, Jen Silverman, Jen Silverman: Three Plays: The Roommate; The Moors; Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties., Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

(theater) A microphone typically kept backstage or in the control booth for speaking to the audience from offstage.


control booth

(theater) A room or area in a theater or studio which contains technical equipment for controlling things like lighting and sound for productions.


non-equity

The United Professional Theatre Auditions holds combined auditions annually for actors who are available to work full ... Theater professionals from both Equity and non-equity theaters, summer and year-round theaters, dinner theaters,[…]

2008, Shelly Field, Career Coach: Managing Your Career in Theater and the Performing Arts, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 212:

(theater) Of a production: open to performers who are not members of the Actors' Equity Association union.


director of music

director of music (plural directors of music)

musical director
musical director#English


run lines

en-verb

run lines (third-person singular simple present runs lines, present participle running lines, simple past ran lines, past participle run lines)

runs lines (present singular third-person)
running lines (participle present)
ran lines (past)
run lines (participle past)

Reporters: When you're not on stage, get together and run lines. As Sheriff Hartman can tell you, ... That group got together regularly to run lines and had great success. ... Using the Grief Sheet to Improve Community Theatre.

2002, Kenneth Anderson, Good Grief! Using the Grief Sheet to Improve Community Theatre Production: Telling the Story Better Than It Has Ever Been Told, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 274:

In "Barrymore," Mr. Luce imagines that the actor, one month before his death, has taken over a Broadway theater for an evening to run lines from "Richard III," in anticipation of possibly recreating the role that provided him with his[…]

2014 October 13, C. S. Smith, The New York Times Theater Reviews 1997-1998, Routledge, →ISBN, page 51:

(acting) To practice or memorize one's lines from a script outside of rehearsal, usually with another person.


distancing effect

en-noun

distancing effect (plural distancing effects)

(theater, literature) According to Bertold Brecht, performance in such a way that the audience is hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play, and must evaluate their actions on an overt, conscious level.


en travesti

(theater) in the dress of the opposite sex, usually applied to a female playing the role of a young man


non-Aristotelian

From non- + Aristotelian; the general semantics sense was coined by Alfred Korzybski in the 1920s or early 1930s; the dramaturgical sense was coined circa 1930 by Bertolt Brecht.

(drama, theater, of a play) Whose dramaturgical structure departs from the features of classical tragedy in favour of the features of the epic.


Pickelhering

(theater) The nickname given to the comic character or stage buffoon in English comedy troupes that travelled through Germany in the 17th century.


Harlequin

(theater) The best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo.


toplighting

Coordinate term: sidelighting

(film, theater, architecture) The lighting of a scene or location from above.


sidelighting

Coordinate term: toplighting

(film, theater, architecture) The lighting of a scene or location from the side.


straight play

It is unthinkable for a straight play to enjoy a life span like those of the blockbuster musicals or to earn such astronomical grosses.

2004, Steven Adler, On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way, SIU Press, →ISBN, page 221:

(theater) A play relying on spoken dialogue to tell the story, in contrast to a musical.


hold the stage

en-verb

hold the stage (third-person singular simple present holds the stage, present participle holding the stage, simple past and past participle held the stage)

holds the stage (present singular third-person)
holding the stage (participle present)
held the stage (participle past)
held the stage (past)

(theater, of a play) To continue to be produced.


sock and buskin

Named from two ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy. In ancient Greek theatre, actors in tragic roles wore a boot called a buskin, while those in comedic roles wore a thin-soled "sock" or soccus.

(theater, metonymic) The comedy and tragedy masks.


swordography

Blend of sword + choreography. By surface analysis, sword + -o- + -graphy.

surf

Do you know what? I had so much fun. The swordography... you know, I think we needed more swordography, to be honest. Loved the sword fight.

2023, 31:26 from the start, in Strictly Come Dancing, season 21, episode 3, spoken by Zara McDermott:

(theater, dance) Choreography using (prop) swords.


olio drop

(theater) A large canvas or drop that is attached at the bottom to a long rigid tube rigged to roll as it rises out, used in vaudeville theater.


set dresser

(theater, film, television) A person who prepares the set with props and furniture to give it the correct appearance and to make sure that each item is in the correct position for each performance.


book-bearer

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-book-bearer.wav

(theater, obsolete, archaic) A theatrical prompter.


on book

(theater, uncommon) Referencing a script; not recited from memory.


monolight

(theater, film) A self-contained photographic flash lighting unit, typically found in studios.


Meisner technique

Developed by American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.

(acting) An approach to acting in which the actor focuses on the other actors in the immediate environment, rather than on him- or herself.


John Audley

(theater, slang) A fictitious person mentioned (e.g. "is John Audley there?") as a signal to shorten the performance of a show, to make room for a fresh audience.


light engineering

Coordinate term: sound engineering

(film, television, theater) The technical discipline of the installation of lighting equipment and its utility on a set.


curtain time

en-noun

curtain time (countable and uncountable, plural curtain times)

(theater) The time at which a play or performance is scheduled to commence.


front-of-house curtain

front-of-house curtain (plural front-of-house curtains)


stage crew

Meronyms: stagehand; sceneman, sceneshifter

Coordinate term: stage manager

(theater) The crew of stagehands that work behind the scenes to make a show happen.


2.5D musical

Coined by Makoto Matsuda in 2014, when he established the Japan 2.5-Dimensional Musical Association.

(theater, drama) A type of modern Japanese musical theater production which adapts stories originally presented in a two-dimensional medium (anime, manga, or video games).


technical rehearsal

technical rehearsal (countable and uncountable, plural technical rehearsals)

(music, film, theater) A rehearsal that focuses on the technological aspects of the performance, such as lighting and stage arrangement.


fill light

(film, television, photography, theater) A light that may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene to match the dynamic range of the recording media and capture the amount of detail typically seen by eye in average conditions.


trapwork

(theater) An arrangement of traps (openings through the stage floor).


kabukiesque

en-adj

kabukiesque (comparative more kabukiesque, superlative most kabukiesque)

more kabukiesque (comparative)
most kabukiesque (superlative)
Kabukiesque (alternative)


walk on

en-verb

walk on (third-person singular simple present walks on, present participle walking on, simple past and past participle walked on)

walks on (present singular third-person)
walking on (participle present)
walked on (participle past)
walked on (past)

He walks on after your line.


production manager

en-noun

production manager (plural production managers)


kitchen sink realism

(theater, television) A British cultural movement that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, characterized by its depiction of the gritty, often bleak, realities of working-class life.


ghost light

(theater) A light that is left energised on the stage of a theatre when the theatre is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark.


drama mask

Named from an ancient dual symbol of the performing arts. Since ancient Greek theatre, two masks bearing a smiling face and frowning or crying grimace have represented comedy and tragedy.

(theater) A mask associated with drama and acting; either a comedy mask or a tragedy mask.


comedy mask

One of two ancient symbols of the performing arts. In ancient Greek theatre, actors in comedic roles often wore a mask of a smiling and/or laughing face.


tragedy mask

One of two ancient symbols of the performing arts. In ancient Greek theatre, actors in tragic roles often wore a mask of a frowning and/or crying face.


comedy and tragedy

comedy and tragedy (plural comedy and tragedies)

(theater) The genres of comedy and tragedy.

(theater, synecdochically) The comedy mask and tragedy mask.

(theater, metonymic) The sock and buskin.


Thalia and Melpomene

Named from Thalia and Melpomene, the Muses of comedy and tragedy respectively.

(theater, poetic) The genres of comedy and tragedy.

(theater, poetic) Symbolism of the comedy mask and tragedy mask.

(theater, poetic) Symbolism of the sock and buskin.