Tabs | Originally called "tableaux drapes", but now used to mean any curtain or drapery defining the acting area. You'll often see them referred to in the notes contained in working scripts relative to stage setting suggestions. |
Teaser | The long, horizontal flat or piece of cloth hung above the stage behind the main curtain and which, in combination with the vertical tormentors, forms a false or inner proscenium. |
Tech Rehearsal | A rehearsal in which all technical aspects of the production are utilized, including the lights, sound effects, set changes, and special effects. Just short of a dress rehearsal, in which costume and makeup is added. |
Tetrology | The trilogy of tragedies performed at the annual competition on the feast of Dionysus in ancient Athens. |
Theatre | No definition of theatre is broad enough, elastic enough, to encompass the entire scope of the dramatic arts in all their diversity -- dance, opera, ballet, worship, pageants, dialogue, acrobatics, circuses . . . the list could be almost endless; for theatre is the art where all arts meet. This having been said, the term as we will define it here means: (1) the building or buildings in which plays are produced and offered for viewing by an audience; and (2) the dramatic arts and the people who work in or study them. From the Roman theatrum. |
Theatre in the Round |
Form of play presentation in which the stage is surrounded on all sides by the audience. One of the earliest forms of theatrical presentation, Theatre in the Round enjoyed a revival in interest as a consequence of the realism movement. A form of theatre arising out of this concept is that of the "promenade" production in which the actors move out from the stage and bring their performance amongst the members of the audience. |
Thespis | Greek poet from Icaria in Attica, usually considered the founder of drama, since he was the first to use an actor in his works, in addition to the chorus and its leader. He won the first Dionysian contest in Athens in the c. 534 B.C. |
Thrust Stage | See, also, Open Stage. Type of stage dating from the Elizabethan era. The stage has a backwall and is surrounded on the other three sides by the audience. |
Tormentors | The two vertical flats (sometimes drapes) directly behind the main curtain that can be moved to adjust the size of the proscenium opening. With the horizontal teaser suspended between them, the tormentors form the false or inner proscenium. |
Trap | A door in the stage floor through which actors can enter and exit. |
Tragedy | Play dealing in an elevated poetic style with events which depict man as the victim of destiny, yet superior to it. In the modern sense, fate or destiny has come to be replaced by character flaw, moral weakness or social pressure. |
Tragi-Comedy | A form of tragedy which, while it has an unhappy ending, contains certain elements of comedy and the remote possibility of a happy ending. |
Traveller | A curtain or drape that "travels" on a transverse batten by means of pulleys mounted on or in the batten and a line attached to the curtain by means of metal hooks or links. |
Trim | The draperies, curtains and other items included in a set for aesthetic reasons. As a verb, the term can mean to adjust a drop or border so that it hangs the correct distance from the stage floor. The term can also be used as a verb to describe the process of adjusting the dimmers that control the intensity of the lighting instruments. |
Troupe | A company of actors. |
Truck | See, Boat-Truck. A boat-truck without casters is essentially a platform that can be placed on stage to serve as a dais, battlement, riser, or just as a design element in the setting. |