AQA A-Level Drama and Theatre practitioners overview quiz quiz

Bertolt Brecht, founder of epic theatre

Antonin Artaud and his Theatre of Cruelty

The Frantic Assembly physical theatre company

Konstantin Stanislavski

Everything the text establishes about the character's situation: who, where, when and why

The full list of lighting states and sound cues that the technical team must run

The personal opinions and tastes of the director leading the rehearsal process

The expectations and assumptions the watching audience brings with them on the night of a performance

Emotion memory, recalling a personal feeling to fuel the role

The alienation effect (Verfremdungseffekt)

The fourth wall, an invisible barrier sealing off the stage world

The magic if, imagining how you would behave in the situation

A particular type of harsh stage lighting that is used to flatten the actors' facial features

A traditional folk musical instrument played live by the company during scenes

A clear physical gesture or attitude that reveals a character's social position

A naturalistic acting exercise drawn directly from Stanislavski's own system

Staging genuine, literal physical violence between the performers on stage

The deliberately cruel and harsh treatment of the actors during rehearsals

Charging deliberately high ticket prices in order to exclude poorer members of the watching audience

A rigorous, unflinching intensity that confronts the audience and reaches the subconscious

An assault on the senses through intense sound, light, movement and ritual

A highly detailed naturalistic box set built to resemble a real domestic room

Strict, faithful reliance on the exact words of the original playwright's text

Emotion memory exercises borrowed directly from the Stanislavskian tradition

Agitprop-style staging built around political placards, hand-painted banners and rousing protest song

Dynamic physical theatre and a clear, teachable devising method using building blocks and lifts

Strict Stanislavskian naturalism rooted in detailed psychological character study

Faithful museum-style revivals of the great surviving Greek tragedies

Theatre that may only ever be performed outdoors in natural daylight settings

Theatre staged entirely without any human actors, relying on objects alone

A form in which meaning is created mainly through the body, movement and ensemble rather than dialogue alone

Theatre that relies only on pre-recorded sound and never includes any live spoken words from the performers at all

Both practitioners want the watching audience to lose themselves completely in full and unbroken emotional identification

Both practitioners want the audience to stay coolly distanced and critically detached

Stanislavski wanted no watching audience present at all, only the actors in the room

Stanislavski seeks emotional identification and illusion; Brecht seeks critical distance and political thought

You devise an original piece influenced by their methodology, supported by a working notebook

You write a long written essay analysing the details and key events of their personal biography and career

You perform one of their own published plays completely unchanged from the script

Practitioners are not used in Component 2 at all, only in the written examination