A Comprehensive Glossary for Playwrights

We recently ran a practical toolkit for people who wanted to be playwrights, and I wanted to expand on what we can offer those looking to get their voice into actors and onto the stage.

Today, I have a glossary for playwrights. It covers lots of terms you need to know if you want to get into playwriting.

So, if you’re ready to tap your inner Shakespeare and put your words onto paper, learn this stuff.

Nothing like a little free education.

Let’s dive in.

A Glossary for Playwrights

• Absurdism (Theatre of the Absurd): A style of theatre originating in the 1950s that emphasizes the meaninglessness and absurdity of human existence. Plays in this style often feature illogical situations, repetitive or nonsensical dialogue, and unconventional structures.
• Act: A major division in a play. Acts are often divided into smaller sections called scenes.
• Action: The physical and psychological events of the story. What a character does to achieve their objective.
• Adaptation: The process of converting a work from another medium (like a novel, film, or historical event) into a play.
• Antagonist: The character or force that opposes the protagonist, creating the central conflict of the play.
• Apron: The area of the stage that extends in front of the proscenium arch.
• Archetype: A universally recognized character type, symbol, or situation (e.g., the hero, the mentor, the trickster).
• Arena Stage (or Theatre in the Round): A stage setup where the audience surrounds the acting area on all sides.
• Aside: A brief comment made by a character directly to the audience, which is understood to be inaudible to the other characters on stage.
• Beat: The smallest unit of action in a scene. A beat shift occurs when a character changes objective or tactic. It can also refer to a deliberate pause in dialogue, often noted in the script.
• Black Box Theatre: A flexible performance space, typically a large square room with black walls and a flat floor, that can be configured into various stage/audience arrangements.
• Black Comedy (or Dark Comedy): A subgenre of comedy that deals with taboo or serious subjects, such as death, disease, or war, in a satirical or humorous way.
• Blackout: A sudden and complete darkening of the stage, often used to end a scene.
• Blocking: The precise staging of actors’ movements on stage. A playwright may suggest key movements in stage directions.
• Catharsis: The emotional release or purification experienced by the audience at the end of a tragedy.
• Character Arc: The transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of the story.
• Chekhov’s Gun: A dramatic principle stating that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. If a gun is introduced in the first act, it must go off by the end.
• Climax: The point of greatest tension or turning point in the play, where the central conflict comes to a head.
• Comedy: A genre of play that is humorous and typically has a happy ending for the main characters.
• Commission: A fee paid to a playwright to write a specific play for a theatre company or producer.
• Conflict: The central struggle between opposing forces. Can be internal (character vs. self) or external (character vs. character, society, or nature).
• Crossfade: A lighting or sound effect where one element smoothly fades out while another fades in.
• Cue: A signal, either verbal or physical, that indicates something else is to happen (e.g., a line of dialogue that triggers another actor’s entrance, a light change).
• Cyclorama (Cyc): A large curtain or wall, often curved, positioned at the back of the stage and used for lighting effects or projections.
• Denouement (or Resolution): The final part of the play where the strands of the plot are drawn together, and the central conflict is resolved.
• Deus Ex Machina: Latin for “god from the machine.” A plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely intervention.
• Dialogue: The conversation between two or more characters.
• Diction: The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
• Direct Address: When a character speaks directly to the audience, acknowledging their presence.
• Downstage: The area of the stage closest to the audience.
• Dramatic Irony: A device where the audience’s understanding of events surpasses that of the characters.
• Dramatis Personae: The list of characters in a play, usually found at the beginning of the script.
• Dramaturg: A literary advisor who works with the playwright, director, and creative team to help shape the play through research, feedback, and script analysis.
• Epic Theatre: A theatrical movement associated with Bertolt Brecht that seeks to appeal to the audience’s intellect rather than their emotions, often using techniques to remind them they are watching a play.
• Exposition: The introductory part of a play that provides necessary background information.
• Expressionism: A style of theatre that presents the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.
• Falling Action: The section of the play that follows the climax, where tension decreases and the story moves toward its conclusion.
• Farce: A comedy that aims to entertain through exaggerated, improbable situations, slapstick, and broad physical humor.
• Flashback: A scene set in a time earlier than the main story.
• Flat Character: A two-dimensional character who is not well-developed and does not change throughout the play.
• Foil: A character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) to highlight particular qualities.
• Foreshadowing: A hint of what is to come later in the story.
• Fourth Wall: The imaginary “wall” at the front of the stage separating the audience from the world of the play.
• French Scene: A scene division marked by the entrance or exit of a character.
• Freytag’s Pyramid: A model of dramatic structure that maps a play’s action as: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
• Gobo: A thin piece of metal or glass used to modify the shape of the light from a lighting instrument.
• Hamartia: The fatal flaw leading to the downfall of a tragic hero.
• House: The area of the theatre where the audience sits.
• Hubris: Excessive pride or self-confidence, often the tragic flaw of a protagonist.
• Inciting Incident: The event that sets the main conflict in motion.
• In Medias Res: Latin for “in the middle of things.” A narrative that begins in the midst of the plot.
• Melodrama: A dramatic work with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.
• Monologue: A long speech by one character, delivered to other characters on stage.
• Musical Theatre: A form of theatre that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance.
• Naturalism: A heightened form of realism that seeks to present a “slice of life” on stage, often focusing on how environment and heredity shape characters.
• Objective: What a character wants or needs in a particular scene.
• Obstacle: Something that stands in the way of a character achieving their objective.
• Offstage (O.S.): Indicates dialogue, sound, or action that occurs out of the audience’s view.
• One-Act Play: A play that takes place in a single act.
• Parenthetical: A brief note in parentheses within dialogue that describes a character’s tone, action, or intention (e.g., angrily, to herself). Use sparingly.
• Pinter Pause: A type of pause in dialogue, named after playwright Harold Pinter, that is filled with unspoken subtext and tension.
• Plot: The sequence of events that make up the story of the play.
• Props (Properties): Objects used on stage by actors.
• Proscenium Stage: The most common type of stage, framed by an arch that creates a “picture frame” effect.
• Protagonist: The main character of the play.
• Rake: A stage that is sloped, with the upstage end higher than the downstage end.
• Reading: A performance where actors read from the script, with minimal staging, for an invited audience to help the playwright hear the play aloud.
• Realism: A style of theatre that aims to create the illusion of real life on stage.
• Resolution (or Denouement): The final outcome of the story.
• Reversal (Peripeteia): A sudden and unexpected change in fortune or circumstances for the protagonist.
• Rising Action: The series of events that build from the inciting incident toward the climax.
• Round Character: A complex, well-developed character with depth and dimension.
• Royalties: The fee paid to a playwright for each public performance of their play.
• Satire: A genre that uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices.
• Scene: A division of an act, usually representing a continuous action in a specific time and place.
• Scrim: A piece of gauze-like fabric that appears opaque when lit from the front and transparent when lit from behind.
• Setting: The time and place where the action occurs.
• Soliloquy: A speech in which a character, usually alone on stage, speaks their thoughts aloud directly to the audience.
• Stage Directions: The playwright’s notes describing the setting, characters’ actions, and visual effects.
• Stage Left / Stage Right: The sides of the stage from the actor’s perspective as they face the audience.
• Stakes: What a character stands to gain or lose. High stakes create high tension.
• Static Character: A character who does not undergo any significant change during the play.
• Stichomythia: Rapid, alternating single lines of dialogue between two characters, often used in scenes of intense conflict or emotion.
• Stock Character: A stereotypical character easily recognized by the audience (e.g., the nagging wife, the wise old man).
• Subplot: A secondary storyline that coexists with the main plot.
• Subtext: The unspoken thoughts, feelings, and motivations that lie beneath the surface of the dialogue.
• Suspension of Disbelief: The audience’s willingness to accept the fictional world of the play.
• Tableau: A silent and motionless depiction of a scene, often used at the end of an act.
• Tactic: The specific strategy a character uses to achieve their objective.
• Ten-Minute Play: A short play that runs for approximately ten minutes.
• Theme: The central idea or underlying message of the play.
• Thrust Stage: A stage that extends into the audience on three sides.
• Tragedy: A genre of drama based on human suffering that invokes catharsis in the audience. The protagonist usually has a tragic flaw and meets a disastrous end.
• Tragicomedy: A genre that blends aspects of both tragedy and comedy.
• Upstage: The area of the stage furthest from the audience.
• Verisimilitude: The appearance of being true or real.
• Voice-Over (V.O.): Dialogue spoken by an unseen character, often used for narration.
• Wings: The offstage areas to the right and left of the acting area.
• Workshop: A collaborative process where a play is developed with actors, a director, and a dramaturg, often leading to a staged reading or a full production.

Let me know what I should add in the comments.