| Play or Drama | a story acted out, live and onstage |
| Act | one of the main parts into which a play is divided |
| Scene | a sub-section of an act |
| Playwright | a person who writes plays |
| Actor | a person who acts in plays, movies and television |
| Director | the person in charge of making all of the decisions about how a play will look, the actors that will play each part and what parts of the play to include on the stage – does not write the play |
| Technical Designer | person in charge of creating the setting and fulfilling the directors vision for the play |
| Cast | a group of actors |
| Set | scenery and any furniture used on stage |
| Stage Directions | instructions that describe how a character moves and speaks, audience does not hear these – actors use them as suggestions for how to become a certain character |
| Dialogue | a conversation between characters |
| Monologue | a long speech by one character to another character in the play |
| Soliloquy | a speech in a play in which a character is alone on stage thinking aloud to him/herself |
| Aside | words spoken by an actor to the people watching a play, that the other characters in the play do not hear |
| Prologue | the introduction to a play |
| Epilogue | a speech that is added to the end of a play that discusses or explains the ending |
| Dramatic Irony | when the audience knows something that the characters do not know yet |
| Rhyme Scheme | the ordered pattern of rhymes at the end of a line of a poem or verse |
| Iambic Pentameter | 5 unstressed-stressed syllable units per line, 10 total syllables per line |
| Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Couplets | a set of two rhyming lines in a poem; at the end of a sonnet |
| Sonnet | a 14 line poem, written in iambic pentameter, with a regular rhyme scheme (AABB, ABAB, ABBA, etc.) |
| Comedy | a story that ends happily, often with lovers uniting – the problem is always resolved, but not before ridiculous events happen |
| Tragedy | a serious story that ends unhappily, often in one or more character’s death |
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Drama Terms
August 12, 2019