In And Around your Local Theater Online Quiz | Humanities

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Just like in a movie theater, most theaters and performance halls will have a large room where the audience may wait and possibly buy concessions before the show begins. What's this room called?

Answer: Lobby

Audiences typically aren't allowed in the same room as the stage until the show is about to begin - if your theater has a lobby, that's where people will probably have to wait. Depending on the size of the theater, the lobby may be one small room or span several floors! My favorite local theater has a lobby decorated with photographs of past productions.

2. Where in a theater can you go to reserve tickets to see a production?

Answer: Box office

The box office will usually be a room physically built into a theater, though it may also be a standalone table or booth. Some box offices will sell tickets for as long as they're available, up until a few minutes before a show begins.

3. The section of the theater where the audience sits is usually referred to as "the stands."

Answer: False

Maybe, just maybe, this would be true if you were seeing a play about baseball. In any other context, that section is referred to as "the house." This can also technically refer to any area that is not part of the performance space or backstage, but it is most frequently used in reference to the seating area.

4. Most theaters use a proscenium-style staging, where the audience is seated entirely on one side of the stage (for example, the front) and separate from it, but some theaters will stage a production in the middle of an audience which surrounds the stage from all sides! What's this kind of staging usually called?

Answer: Arena

Arena staging is difficult for actors and crew to work with, and most theaters can't accommodate it anyway. It can technically be done in a black box, in which a show is performed in what is usually a small room with no explicit "stage," but even that is rare. A thrust stage has the audience seated on three sides of the stage, as though the stage is "thrust" into the house.

5. While a show's director may not attend performances, there's still someone there whose job is to ensure that actors and crew are where they are supposed to be when they're supposed to be there. What's this person's title?

Answer: Stage Manager

The stage manager may wear several hats throughout a production, such as creating rehearsal reports and calling cues for lights, sound, or other effects. While not every production will necessarily have an assistant director or Dramaturg (whose role is to research the script in order to inform artistic decisions during production), there will pretty much always be a stage manager.

6. Where is "upstage" in a proscenium-style staging?

Answer: Farthest from the audience

Upstage is away from the audience; downstage is close to the audience. These terms are usually modified by "right," "left", and "center," eg. "upstage center" or "downstage right." This formalized system of direction means that actors don't need to bring a compass to rehearsal.

7. The production designer, who is responsible for designing a production's set, has decided she wants to build and paint free-standing walls on the stage to create the illusion of the interior of a room. What are those walls called, exactly?

Answer: Flats

Flats are lightweight, usually temporary walls made by stretching muslin over a wooden frame. They're especially helpful in productions that take place in one room, like "Arsenic and Old Lace" or, say, "Medea," though shows with multiple settings may simply rotate between different flats to depict different environments.

At my high school, an improperly weighted flat once fell over during a performance of "Harvey."

8. On occasion, a production may use a large white sheet at the back of the stage as part of its scenic design, which may then be used for projection or special lighting. What's the special name for this sheet?

Answer: Cyclorama

Often abbreviated "cyc," a cyclorama may be used to create the illusion of a distant background or simply to aid in lighting a scene - a cyc is particularly good, for example, at creating the illusion of blue sky or sunset. Some history museums in the US make use of large cyclorama to create an immersive scene of a historical event.

9. Most theaters will be equipped with an area above the performance space from which lights can be hung. What's the name of this area? (You're not likely to encounter any models.)

Answer: Catwalk

The full catwalk typically extends over most or all of the house and performance space. The safety features of a catwalk may range from guard rails to catch nets depending on the size and relative age of a theater. If your theater lacks a catwalk, the scene shop may make use of a ladder, cherry picker, or standing poles to hang lights instead.

10. What's the specific name for the process of deconstructing or demolishing a set?

Answer: Strike

The strike is the last part of any production - unless that production is "Pippin," in which case strike may be part of the performance! During strike, the set is deconstructed and removed from the stage, and its parts are either stored away or discarded. Traveling productions must strike their sets frequently for travel, and so they will typically be optimized for quick deconstruction and movement.

Source: Author OddballJunior

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor ponycargirl before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

In And Around your Local Theater Quiz

If you've ever been part of the wonderful world of live performance, these terms about the people and places that make theater a reality should be familiar to you. Break a leg!

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