Final Exam Review

The Final Exam for Playwriting may cover any or all of the following items, please review:

The plays & playwrights: 
Jane Martin: Talking With
Marcia Norman: 'Night Mother
John Leguzamo: Spic-o-Rama
Ntozake Shange: For Colored Girls...Enuf
Dael Orlandersmith: Monster
Paula Vogel: The Baltimore Waltz
Agatha Christie: The Mousetrap
Charles Busch: Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; Psycho Beach Party; Lady in Question; Red Scare on Sunset
Charles Ludlam: Mystery of Irma Vep
Peter Shaffer: Amadeus
William Shakespeare: Henry V
Steve Martin: Picasso At the Lapine Agile 
James Goldman: The Lion in Winter
Henrik Ibsen: Hedda Gabler
Anton Chekhov: The Seagull
Samuel Beckett: Waiting For Godot 

Proper script format
How to create characters/characterization
Techniques to motivate and gather ideas

Play Vocabulary:

• Premise: a deeply held belief by the playwright which shapes a script.
• Conflict
• Structural Unity: all parts of the plot (exposition, rising action, turning point, climax, resolution, etc.) should work and fit together.
• Inciting Incident: the point of attack, the inciting incident forces the protagonist into the action of the play's plot.
• Events
• Major Dramatic Question (MDQ): the hook that keeps an audience interested in a play; a dramatic question that a reader/viewer wants answered.
• Major decision: A decision a character makes in the plot that creates the turning point for their character.
• The three C's: Conflict, crisis, complication: obstacles characters must face for an interesting and dramatic plot.
• Rising Action
• The dark moment/crisis: the lowest moment of a character's struggle--when all the world seems lost, the fight unbeatable, the "darkest hour before dawn" -- a stunning reversal of fortune and sense of failure.
• Deus ex machina: a contrived ending. Often one in which the characters did not have a hand in solving. (It is more interesting to see a character deal with their own problems rather than an outside force solving it for them.) literally, a "god from a machine"
• Enlightenment: When the protagonist understands how to defeat the antagonist. A revelation that begins the movement toward a climax.
• Climax
• Catharsis
• Ten minute play format
• One act plays
• Full length plays (2, 3, 4, or 5 act)
• Monologues/Soliloquies
• Commedia d'ell Arte 
• Generating ideas for plays 
• Ridiculous Theater
• Absurdist Theater 
• Constantin Stanislavski
• Moscow Art Theatre
• Farce
• The Event: a uniquely significant moment in the character's lives
• Time lock: setting up a time limit or specific deadline characters have to meet in order to spur them into action (for example having a script project due...)
• French scenes
• Place & setting
• Theme
• Scenario: an outline for a writer to identify major/minor characters, plot, and setting used BEFORE writing a script
• Catalyst: the event in the play that causes a character to take action
• Character flaw
• Creating credible characters
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Subtext: what is not said in a character's line. The subtext are the subtle details or clues used by the actor to develop their character.
• Beat: a short exchange of dialogue
• Different types of beats: physical, behavioral, inner-life
• Backstory
• A Confidant: a character the protagonist or antagonist can talk with to reveal necessary backstory
• Verisimilitude: the semblance of truth in characters and setting. "a king should act like a king, not a foul-mouthed beggar."
• Dialogue (tips and advice) 
• Theatrical/literary periods: realism, modernism, absurdism, symbolism, comedy, naturalism, romanticism, Elizabethan, tragedy, comedy, etc. 
• Play development & workshopping a play 
• Writing and rewriting a script (advice)