1. Stage Vocabulary and Stage Types for Tech Students YAY!

2. Just an FYI: Have a piece of paper handy You guys are in high school and in an advanced theatre class – I’m 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 don’t already know, WRITE IT DOWN. –Guess what? The folks in college aren’t going to underline stuff for you either. You are responsible for your learning. As it says all over the school, OWN YOUR LEARNING!

3. Additionally It’s not just about tests, we’re going to use these words and “stuff” a bunch this year. If you don’t take heed now, you’re going to be lost later!

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

5. Stage type depends on where the audience is located in relation to the stage/performance

6. Audience is here, but the stage areas are from the performer’s view.

7. Stage areas are from the performer’s perspective Stage Left Stage Right

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

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

10. What do we usually do now with stages? We’ve flipped it around for the opposite- raked (sloped) audience with flat stage We kept the terms upstage and downstage, though

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

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 won’t worry about that much for the time being)

13. Audience is on ONE side of the stage

14. Thrust Stage (Audience is on THREE sides of the stage)

15. Arena/Theatre in the Round (Audience is on ALL sides of the stage)