AQA GCSE Drama drama and theatre knowledge overview quiz quiz

The playwright

The stage manager

The director

The lighting operator

Plot, character, theme and language

Pitch, pace, pause and tone

Set, props, makeup and special effects

Set, costume, lighting and sound

Theatre in the round

End-on proscenium arch staging

Thrust stage

Traverse staging

Direct address spoken straight out to the audience

A fourth wall between actors and audience

Placards and a narrator who comments on the action

Telling the story only through movement

Naturalism

Melodrama

Epic theatre

Physical theatre

On all four sides, completely surrounding the central acting space

On two opposite sides, facing each other across the action

On three sides of a stage that pushes out into the audience

On one side, looking as if through a picture frame

Character, status, period and personality

The exact time of day at which a scene is set

How loud the sound design plays during the scene

Which staging configuration the production uses

A warm amber wash filling the whole stage evenly

A dim, cold blue wash with sharp shadows

A bright white floodlight covering the full stage

No lighting changes at all for the entire scene

A realistic box set with a fully furnished room behind a fourth wall

A fourth wall and lifelike dialogue spoken naturally between characters

Telling the story mainly through the body and movement

Placards held up to announce the title of each scene to the audience

To make use of more of the lighting rig hanging above the stage

Because the printed stage directions in the script demand that they do

To make the scene changes between each part of the play much faster

So they do not block sightlines for sections of the audience

It does not earn the marks, which reward linking the choice to its effect on the audience

It packs in too much specialist vocabulary for the examiner to follow the point being made

It gives far too much fine detail about the design choice itself and never moves on

It muddles up which staging configuration the production has actually chosen to use

An extended written evaluation of a live theatre production you have seen

Short, terminology-led questions on theatre roles and knowledge

A devised performance created and performed by your own group

An extended study of two extracts taken from one published play