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Theater words, in plain English
Every unfamiliar word here has a plain answer. When these terms appear in our write-ups they carry a small dotted underline: hover or tap for the short version, click for this page. Nobody is born knowing what a swing, a matinee or the mezzanine is.
Kinds of shows and theaters
- Book musical
- A musical where the songs grow out of a spoken story and move it forward; the most common kind.
- Broadway
- The 41 large professional theaters in Manhattan's Theater District, each with 500 or more seats. More →
- Community theater
- Theater made by and for a local community, mostly by volunteers who love doing it. More →
- Dinner theater
- A theater where a meal is served before or during the show, with the ticket usually including dinner.
- Equity
- Actors' Equity Association, the union for professional stage actors and stage managers. More →
- Improv
- Theater made up on the spot, usually comedy, often built from audience suggestions.
- JR. edition junior
- A shortened version of a musical, licensed for young performers, usually 30 to 70 minutes long. More →
- Jukebox musical
- A musical built from existing popular songs, usually by one artist or from one era. More →
- LORT lort
- The League of Resident Theatres, the association of the country's major nonprofit professional theaters. More →
- National tour
- A production of a Broadway show that travels from city to city, usually a week or a few weeks in each. More →
- Off-Broadway
- Professional New York theaters with roughly 100 to 499 seats. More →
- Off-Off-Broadway
- New York's smallest venues, under 100 seats, where a lot of experimental work happens.
- One-act
- A short play performed without an intermission, often under an hour.
- Play (vs. musical)
- A work of theater told through spoken dialogue, without songs carrying the story.
- Regional theater
- A professional, usually nonprofit theater company based outside New York that produces its own season. More →
- Repertory REP-er-tor-ee
- A company that alternates several productions with the same group of actors, sometimes on the same week.
- Revue rih-VYOO
- A show made of songs, sketches or dances linked by a theme rather than a single story. More →
- Summer stock
- Theaters that run a season of shows only in the summer, often in resort or college towns.
- Sung-through
- A musical with little or no spoken dialogue; nearly everything is sung.
- Tony Awards
- The annual awards for Broadway productions and the people who make them.
- TYA T-Y-A
- Theater for Young Audiences: professional shows made specifically for children and families. More →
- World premiere
- The very first production of a new play or musical anywhere. More →
- Youth theater
- Theater performed by children and teenagers, usually through classes, camps and school-year productions.
Tickets and seats
- Box office
- The theater's own ticket counter, in person, by phone or on its website. More →
- Box seats
- Small private sections along the side walls, close to the stage but sometimes with a partial view.
- Limited engagement
- A production scheduled to play only for a set number of weeks. More →
- Mezzanine MEZ-uh-neen
- The first raised level of seats above the orchestra, often with an excellent view of the whole stage.
- Obstructed view
- A seat where a column, railing or the angle hides part of the stage; usually sold at a discount.
- Open run
- A production with no announced closing date; it plays as long as people keep buying tickets. More →
- Orchestra seats
- The ground-floor seats closest to the stage. (In a theater, "orchestra" can mean the seats, not the musicians.) More →
- Pay-what-you-can
- Performances where you choose your own ticket price, so nobody is priced out.
- Previews
- Performances before the official opening, while the creative team is still making changes. More →
- Rush tickets
- Cheap tickets sold on the day of the performance, first come, first served. More →
- Season subscription
- A package of tickets to several shows in a theater's season, usually at a discount.
- Ticket lottery
- A drawing for a handful of cheap tickets; you enter online or at the theater, and winners can buy them. More →
The theater building
- Black box
- A small, flexible room with black walls and no fixed stage, where the seating can be arranged for each show. More →
- Orchestra pit
- The lowered area in front of or under the stage where the band plays for a musical.
- Proscenium proh-SEE-nee-um
- The classic stage: a picture frame at one end of the room, with the audience facing it. More →
- Stage left and stage right
- Left and right from the actor's point of view facing the audience; house left and right are from yours.
- The house
- The part of the theater where the audience sits, and by extension the audience itself. More →
- Theater in the round
- A stage in the middle of the room, with the audience on all sides.
- Thrust stage
- A stage that juts out into the audience, with seats on three sides. More →
- Upstage and downstage
- Upstage is away from the audience; downstage is toward it. (Stages used to slope, higher at the back.)
- Wings (backstage)
- The hidden areas at the sides of the stage where actors wait and scenery is stored.
At the performance
- Closing night
- The last performance of a production's run. More →
- Curtain call
- The bows at the end of the show, when the cast returns for applause. More →
- Eleven o'clock number
- A big solo late in the second act of a musical, where the lead has a turning-point moment. More →
- Entr'acte AHN-tract
- The music the band plays to start the second act of a musical, after intermission.
- Fourth wall
- The imaginary wall between the stage and the audience; breaking it means speaking directly to you.
- Intermission
- The break in the middle of the show, usually 15 to 20 minutes. More →
- Opening night
- The official first performance, after previews, when critics' reviews are published. More →
- Overture OH-ver-chur
- The instrumental music that opens a musical, often a medley of the songs to come.
- Playbill
- The printed program handed out at the door; also the name of the magazine used as the program on Broadway. More →
- Showstopper
- A number so well received that the applause briefly halts the show.
- Stage door
- The performers' entrance, where fans sometimes wait after the show for autographs.
- Talkback
- A conversation after the performance with the cast, director or dramaturg, open to the audience.
Who does what
- Choreographer kor-ee-OG-ruh-fer
- The person who creates the dances and much of the movement in a show.
- Director
- The person who shapes the whole production: the staging, the performances and how the story is told. More →
- Dramaturg DRAM-uh-turg
- A theater's in-house expert on the script: its history, context and meaning. More →
- Ensemble ahn-SAHM-bul
- The group of performers who sing and dance in the big numbers and play many small roles. More →
- Lyricist LEER-ih-sist
- The writer of the words to the songs in a musical.
- Music director
- The person in charge of the music in a musical: teaching the songs and usually conducting the band. More →
- Playwright PLAY-rite
- The writer of a play. The spelling is "wright", as in a maker, not "write".
- Principal
- A performer with a named, featured role, as opposed to the ensemble.
- Stage manager
- The person who runs every performance: calling each light and sound cue and keeping the show on track. More →
- Swing (performer)
- A performer who does not appear every night but knows several ensemble parts and can fill any of them. More →
- Understudy
- A cast member who learns another actor's role and steps in when that actor is out. More →
How a show is made
- Audition
- The tryout where performers sing, read or dance for a role. Community theaters hold open auditions anyone can attend. More →
- Blocking
- The planned movement of actors on stage: where each person stands, enters, crosses and exits.
- Book of a musical
- The spoken scenes and story of a musical, as opposed to the songs. More →
- Dress rehearsal
- A full run of the show in costume, as close to a real performance as possible, before an audience arrives.
- Orchestrations
- The arrangement of a musical's songs for the specific instruments in the band. More →
- Score
- All the music of a musical: the songs plus the instrumental music between them.
- Sitzprobe ZITS-probe
- The first rehearsal where the cast sings with the full band, sitting down, with no staging.
- Staged reading
- A performance of a script read aloud, with minimal movement and no full set, often of a new play.
- Table read
- The first rehearsal, when the cast sits around a table and reads the whole script aloud.
- Tech week
- The rehearsals just before opening, when lights, sound, scenery and costumes are added.
- Workshop (new shows)
- An early, stripped-down development stage of a new show, where writers test and revise it.
Accessible performances
- ASL-interpreted performance
- A performance with American Sign Language interpreters beside the stage for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences.
- Audio description
- Live narration through an earpiece describing what happens on stage, for blind and low-vision audiences.
- Open captioning
- A performance with the words shown on a screen near the stage as they are spoken and sung.
- Relaxed performance
- A performance with softer sound and lights and a welcoming attitude to noise and movement in the audience. More →