Theatre Arts 101- Intro to Theatre » Fall 2022 » Midterm Exam

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Question #1
The popularity of melodrama was caused by the following.
A.   Very high literacy rates among everyone
B.   All other drama was outlawed
C.   Dislike for tragedies
D.   A rise of the middle class due to urbanization from the industrial revolution
Question #2
Which definition best describes willing suspension of disbelief?
A.   A dynamic in which the audience agrees to accept the fictional world of the play on an imaginative level while knowing it to be untrue
B.   A psychological dynamic in which one group of audience members can affect the responses of others to an event, particularly if they share the same cultural background
C.   A technique used by actors in which they defer their own reality to accept that of the play
Question #3
During the restoration, Shakespeare’s plays were adapted to conform to the new classical ideas utilizing this idea.
A.   They changed all the locations in the play to one setting.
B.   They rewrote the ending to have a god appear and solve all the problems.
C.   They rewrote the plays so that only the wicked people would die.
Question #4
Restoration comedy was concerned above all with the following?
A.   The latest fashions
B.   Sexual conquests
C.   Advantageous marriages
D.   All answers here.
E.   Witty verbal exchanges of the rich and idle upper class
Question #5
A typical melodrama plot device included the following.
A.   Mistaken identity
B.   Hidden documents
C.   All of the answers here
D.   Strange coincidences
E.   Abduction
Question #6
One of the most successful writers of Comedies of Intrigue was:
A.   Royall Tyler
B.   Henrik Ibsen
C.   None of these
D.   Aphra Ben
Question #7
In Elizabethan times, actors wore costumes that were:
A.   Beautiful attire representative of their present day clothing
B.   Greek-style clothing
C.   Period appropriate
Question #8
What did the English see for the first time on their stages when theatre reopened in 1660?
A.   Musicals
B.   Didactic drama
C.   Pantomimes
D.   Women actors
Question #9
These are the three unities - a mandate of neoclassicists.
A.   Language, design, performance
B.   Time, place, action
C.   Actors, directors, designers
D.   Set, Costumes, Sound
Question #10
What functions did the chorus serve in the Classical Greek theatre?
A.   All the answers here
B.   Served as the ideal spectator
C.   Expressed the author’s point of view
D.   Served as a group character to express opinions or give advice.
Question #11
Which of the following was the center of activity of the Renaissance?
A.   Italy
B.   England
C.   Germany
D.   France
Question #12
Commedia dell’arte was an Italian Renaissance form of popular theatre that was:
A.   Used stock characters
B.   Was performed by traveling professional performers
C.   All of the answers here
D.   Used Masks
E.   Highly improvisational
Question #13
The Restoration Period was marked by the restoration of the English monarchy.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #14
Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street Theatre was the world’s first playhouse to be completely gaslit.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #15
Elizabethan theatre was a shift from communal, religious and occasionally performed theatre to a professional, secular and regularly performed theatre.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #16
Romans were famous for borrowing ideas from others around them and innovating, rather than being great inventors.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #17
Bunraku was the Japanese theatre of masks.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #18
Hrosvitha was a nun and the first known female dramatist.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #19
Sophocles was the inventor of the trilogy.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #20
The theatron was the part of the theatre where the audience was seated in Greek theatre.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #21
In the film Stage Beauty, the play that is performed toward the end of the film is Hamlet.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #22
In Shakespeare in Love, Lord Wessex loses a bet to Christopher Marlowe.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #23
In the French film Moliere, Jean-Baptiste forces Monsieur Jourdain to act out which animal?
A.   Dog
B.   Cow
C.   Horse
D.   Seal
Question #24
The Puritans were big fans of theatre and built many theatre venues in England.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #25
Bertolt Brecht wrote plays that attempted to focus the audience's reaction on the intellectual rather than the emotional. Which of the following was associated with him and his work?
A.   Epic Theatre and alienation
B.   Immersive theatre
C.   Theatre of the Absurd and fiction
D.   Theatre of Cruelty and the avant-garde
Question #26
Rituals and ceremonies are made up of many theatrical elements.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #27
In Sophocles' play King Oedipus, the oracle tells Oedipus that he will grow up to kill his children.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #28
Mystery Plays were based on stories from the bible, and Morality Plays were plays designed to teach a lesson.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #29
Cyrano gets in a scuffle with everyone who insults his nose, except Christian, because he knows that Roxane loves him.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #30
In Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedict end up getting divorced and move away to different places at the end of the play.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #31
In The Importance of Being Earnest, Algernon finds out that his real name was Ernest.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #32
Anton Chekhov was a Russian playwright (and doctor) who blended tragedy and comedy, creating a genre we call tragicomedy.
A.   False
B.   True
Question #33
Sam Shepard was known for writing American Realism which included high symbolism.
A.   True
B.   False
Question #34
Playwrights Henrik Ibsen of Norway and August Strindberg Sweden are known as the fathers of Realism.
A.   False
B.   True

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