Drama --A literary composition involving conflict, action, crisis, and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on a stage before an audience. This definition applies to motion pictures as well as to traditional stage.

Drama is the most dependent of art forms. Directors, actors, and scene and costume designers must interpret before the audience does

The Place Of An Actor He must respect his play, his part, his fellow players, and his audience. He should have enough imagination to create character for us instead of merely exploiting his own personality. He should use his voice, facial expression, bodily poise, and gestures that enable him to project the character as he conceives it.

Types of Drama Tragedy— a serious play having an unhappy ending It often involved death or destruction of a noble person through a flaw in his character Modern tragedy often shows the tragedy of the weak and the mean rather than the strong and the noble.

Types of Drama Comedy A lighter drama in which the leading characters overcome the difficulties that temporarily beset them. Includes a happy ending

Types of Drama History Play (Chronicle Play) based on recorded history rather than on myth or legend In England, early plays were like pageants, yet they included battle scenes.

Dramatic Terms Aside—lines whispered to the audience or to another character on stage Catastrophe—a final event in a drama (a death in a tragedy or a marriage in a comedy) Comic Relief—a bit of humor injected into a serious play to relieve the heavy tension of tragic events

Dramatic Terms Dramatic Irony—occurs when the audience knows something that the character does not Poetic Justice—the operation of justice in a play with fair distribution of rewards for good deeds and punishment for wrong doing

Dramatic Terms Monologue—an actor delivers a speech in the presence of other characters who listen, but do not speak Tragic Flaw—a character trait that leads one to his/her own downfall or destruction Tragic Hero--an honorable protagonist with a tragic flaw, also known as fatal flaw, which eventually leads to his demise

Dramatic Terms Soliloquy a single character on stage expresses thoughts and feelings out loud. used extensively during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods in England allows a dramatist to convey important information about a character