Theatre Terms
As a service to the theatre community, AACT provides over 1000 definitions of theatrical terms. Fully searchable, our glossary is helpful for technical staff, directors, actors, producers, or anyone wanting to better understand the inner workings of theatre.
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Click on a letter (A-Z) below to find terms beginning with the specified letter, OR enter a word in "Search for Term" OR search by entering a word in "Words in Definition." For example, entering the word "curtain" would display all words whose definition includes that word. (Note: If the A-Z or word search has been activated, it must be reset before using "Search for Term" or "Words in Definition." To reset the A-Z search: Click Here)
| Term | Definition | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Monitor |
A speaker/loudspeaker normally used off stage, rather than in the audience area. It allows a musician, sound engineer, crew or cast member to hear what the audience is (or should be) hearing. |
Speaker |
| MONITOR | 1) An onstage speaker which allows a performer to hear the output of the PA system, or other members of a band. 2) A video display screen. | |
| MONOLOGUE or MONOLOG | A dramatic performance or reading by one person alone. Many auditions require actors to prepare monologues (often one comic and one serious) as a way of determining the actor's emotional and vocal range. | |
| MORALITY PLAY | An allegorical (representational) play, with characters personifying abstractions, originally (in medieval times) serious and theologically instructive; later often dealing with non-theological topics. | |
| MUG | In acting, to use exaggerated facial expression, usually in a comedy. Thus, "mugging" "to mug," and "a mugger." The term comes from a slang word for the face. | |
| MULTICORE | Flexible electrical cable composed of several well-insulated cores covered in a strong PVC or rubber covering. Enables a number of different circuits to be carried down one piece of cable. Both lighting and sound multicores are available. | |
| MULTIPLEXED (MUX) SIGNAL | Modern lighting desks use this serial form of communication with dimmers. All the information from the desk is transmitted along a single pair of cables to the dimmer where a de-multiplexing unit (demux box) decodes the string of data and passes the correct piece of information to the correct dimmer. The industry standard protocol (language/standard) for multiplexing is the digital USITT DMX512) However, new protocols are continually being added to keep up with more demanding equipment. SMX is a communications protocol which enables digital dimmers to "report back" to the desk on any faults (e.g. blown lamps). D54 uses a stream of analogue voltage levels and was the Strand standard before DMX512 arrived. | |
| MUMMER'S PLAY or MUMMERS' PLAY | A British folk drama of death and resurrection, performed in medieval times. | |
| MUSE | Thalia is the Muse of Comedy and Melpomene is the Muse of Tragedy. Muses were minor Greek gods who were thought to inspire artistic endeavors. | |
| MUSIC HALL | A British term for a vaudeville or variety theatre, in which performers take turns in entertaining an audience. | |
| MUSICAL COMEDY | A type of theatre that entails a light comedy plot, dances, songs, spoken dialogue. The term is American, and the style came to prominence after 1914, and has never died out. | |
| MUSICAL DIRECTOR | In a musical, the person with overall responsibility for everything relating to the music. | |
| MUSICAL PLAY |
A branch of musical theatre, in which the essentially light story takes on more heavily dramatic overtones, often with social and political issues. There is an effort to link all songs and dances to the characters, plot, and setting, as opposed to music for entertainment alone. Examples include Show Boat, Carousel, Gypsy, Company, and Evita. |
|
| MYSTERY PLAY | 1) A play (usually medieval) based on a biblical story, more particularly, a play dealing with the life of Christ. 2) A play based on the detection of a crime. |
