Slide 1

Stage Vocabulary and Stage Types for Tech Students YAY! Slide 2 Just an FYI: Have a piece of paper handy You guys are in high school and in an advanced theatre class Im not going to tell you exactly what to write down or provide underlining like in Theatre 1, BUT if a vocabulary word, stage area, etc. comes along that you dont already know, WRITE IT DOWN. Guess what? The folks in college arent going to underline stuff for you either. You are responsible for your learning. As it says all over the school, OWN YOUR LEARNING! Slide 3 Additionally Its not just about tests, were going to use these words and stuff a bunch this year. If you dont take heed now, youre going to be lost later! Slide 4 Things to consider Technicians MUST know stage areas well (in their sleep!) in order to communicate with each other, directors, actors, and staff They also must know these things for interpretation of floorplans and construction and/or placement of set pieces and other objects Slide 5 Stage type depends on where the audience is located in relation to the stage/performance Slide 6 Audience is here, but the stage areas are from the performers view. Slide 7 Stage areas are from the performers perspective Stage Left Stage Right Slide 8 Why up and down? At one point in history, the stage was raked (sloped) and the audience was flat Literally, upstage was once higher than downstage Upstage Downstage Slide 9 What would problems of a raked/sloped stage be? Performers sliding off Set pieces uneven and/or sliding off Unable to choreograph any intricate movement because performers would become injured Slide 10 What do we usually do now with stages? Weve flipped it around for the opposite- raked (sloped) audience with flat stage We kept the terms upstage and downstage, though Slide 11 CENTER LINE: an imaginary line down the center of the stage from upstage to downstage. It is drawn as a dotted line with dashes long, short, long, short, etc. (it is shown in blue below) This line is a landmark used when discussing location of performers or objects on the stage Slide 12 Please reference your handout (That Mrs. Brooks will pass out now) There are 3 main types of stages Proscenium Thrust Arena (Theatre in the Round) As well as 2 other formats * Promenade * (A black box is an additional type, but we wont worry about that much for the time being) Slide 13 Audience is on ONE side of the stage Slide 14 Thrust Stage (Audience is on THREE sides of the stage) Slide 15 Arena/Theatre in the Round (Audience is on ALL sides of the stage)