Drama Terms Review

A story acted out, usually on a stage, by actors and actresses who take the parts of specific characters.

A main division in the play where the stage is set for a new location or time. Curtains would be closed and opened as a sign of change.

• play

• scene

• act

• dialogue

A smaller division of the play inside of an act that shows little to no change in scenery or time.

• dialogue

• scene

• act

• aside

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.

• aside

• dialogue

• stanza

• drama

A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud.

• monologue

• dialogue

• soliloquy

• drama

A group of characters in Greek tragedy (and in later forms of drama), who comment on the action of a play without participation in it.

A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better. In comedy, things work out happily in the end.

• comedy

• history

• tragedy

A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worse. In tragedy, catastrophe and suffering await many of the characters, especially the hero.

• comedy

• history

• tragedy

A play that focuses on a historical figure or event. Often embellished and more dramatic versions of the original.

• comedy

• history

• tragedy

The conversation of characters in a literary work. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks.