What is drama?

 Comes from the Greek word, “Dran”, which

means “To do” or “To Act”
 Drama is written to be performed by actors and
watched by an audience.
The earliest known plays…
 Were written around the fifth century B.C.
produced for festivals to honor Dionysus,
the god of wine and fertility.
 A drama is also called a “Stage Play”
 People who writes a drama is called a
playwright.
Dramatic Structure
 Like the plot of a story, the plot of a play involves
characters who face a problem or conflict.

Climax
Complications

Resolution
Exposition
Dramatic Structure
 A conflict is a struggle or clash between opposing
characters or forces. A conflict may develop…

Between characters who want different things or

the same thing.
Between a character and his or her
circumstances.
Within a character who is torn by competing
desires.
TYPES OF DRAMA / PLAY
Tragedy
 A tragedy is a play that ends unhappily. Most classic
Greek tragedies deal with serious, universal themes
such as:
 right and wrong
 justice and injustice
 life and death
 Tragedy
 Is a drama which involves the ruin of the leading
character(s).
 Examples are Shakespeare’s tragedies, Macbeth,
Hamlet, and Othello. Modern tragedy includes
Death of a Salesman. The protagonist of most classical
tragedies is a tragic hero. This hero:
 is noble and in many ways admirable
has a tragic flaw, a personal failing that leads to
a tragic end
Types of Tragedy
1. Classical Tragedy
- as defined by Aristotle is designed to “ arouse the
emotions of pity and fear and thus to produce in the
audience a catharsis of these emotions” (relieving of
emotional tension)
2. Elizabethan Tragedy
- also has a protagonist who is a tragic hero who falls
victim to a tragic flaw in his character.
Types of Tragedy
3. Romantic Tragedy
- requires a greater development of character and theme
of plot. Allows for humour and the grotesque.
Elizabethan tragedies are mainly romantic tragedies
4. Modern Tragedy
- combines all forms of tragedy and uses plays from each
of the previous centuries.
Comedy
 Comedies are plays which are designed to be
humorous.
 A comedy is a play that ends happily. The plot usually
centers on a romantic conflict.

boy meets girl boy loses girl boy wins girl

Types of Comedy
1. Farce is a generally nonsensical genre of play, Farces
are often overacted and often involve slapstick humor.
2. Fantastic Comedy - deals with impossible situation
in terms of ordinary human nature. An example is Peter
Pan.
3. Tragi-comedy - is drama which does not involve
death or disaster but which verges on tragedy or bitter
satire.
Types of Comedy
4. Melodrama - depends on exciting scenes, overly
dramatic characters and situation, and highly charged
emotional reactions, while paying little attention to
human values or reality. It aims at emotional thrills, but
not laughter.
5. Burlesque - depends on laughable or exaggerated
imitations of well-known characters or events.
Other forms of Drama
 Satire/Satirical Play
A satire play takes a comic look at current events
people while at the same time attempting to make a
political or social statement, for example pointing out
corruption.
 Historical
These plays focus on actual historical events. They
can be tragedies or comedies, but are often neither of
these.
Other forms of Drama
 Musical
In musical theater, the story is told not only through
dialogue and acting but through music and dance.
 One-Act Play
A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as
distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act
plays may consist of one or more scenes.
Elements of One-Act Play
 Theme
The one-act needs to have a theme or
thought just as a full-length does. What is the
play about? In a full-length play, all
characters, plots, and subplots need to point
to and support the theme. The one-act is not
much different, except the subplots will likely
be absent.
Elements of One-Act Play
Plot
In a one-act play there is really only time for one
significant event. This is the determining place for the
hero, where all is won or lost. Events that lead up to this
must be incorporated into the script without the benefit
of the audience seeing them. And any events that follow
must be inferred or understood by the audience that
they will occur.
Elements of One-Act Play
Dialogue
The dialogue need not be terse, but must be
concise and full of meaning. Any lines that do not point
to the focus of the play should be carefully considered
whether they are needed.
 Performance of a Play
When you read a play, remember that it is meant
to be performed for an audience.
Performance of a Play
Elements of Drama/Stageplay
Setting
The setting of a drama presented on
stage must be adapted to the limitations
of the stage area. The playwright must
confine his locations to scenes that can
be constructed on the stage and limited
to as a few changes as possible.
Setting the Stage
 Stages can have many different sizes and layouts.
 “Thrust” stage
 The stage extends into the viewing area.
 The audience surrounds the stage on three sides.
Thrust Stage
“In the round” stage is surrounded by
an audience on all sides.
• Proscenium stage
The playing area extends behind an opening called a
“proscenium arch.”
The audience sits on one side looking into the action

upstage

stage right stage left

downstage
Traverse Stage
A stage where audience sits on two sides.
 Setting the Stage
Scene design transforms a bare stage into
the world of the play. Scene design
consists of
 sets
 lighting
 costumes
 props
• Performance of a Play
 Theater artists include
 Actors
 Directors
 Lighting technicians
 Stage crew
A stage’s set might be:
realistic
and
detailed

abstract
and minimal
A lighting director skillfully uses light to change the mood and
appearance of the set.
The costume director works with the director to design the actors’
costumes.
Like sets, costumes can be:

minimal
detailed
Props (short for properties) are items that
the characters carry or handle onstage.

The person in charge of props must make sure that the

right props are available to the actors at the right
moments.
The characters’ speech may take any
of the following forms:
 Dialogue: conversations of characters onstage
 Monologue: long speech given by one character
to others
 Soliloquy: speech by a character alone onstage to
himself or herself or to the audience
 Asides: remarks made to the audience or to one
character; the other characters onstage do not hear
an aside.
The Audience
Finally, a play needs an audience to:

experience the performance

understand the story
respond to the characters
The NON-VERBAL EXPRESSION
 Gestures – any movement of the actors’ head
shoulder, arm, hand, leg and foot.
 Body Alignment – physiologically correct posture.
 Facial expression – physical and vocal aspects used
by an actor to convey mood, feeling and personality.
 Character blocking – the path formed by the actor’s
movement on stage, usually determined by the
director.
 Movement – stage blocking or the movements of the
actors onstage.