This unit is to familiarize you with some basic theatre terms, and to get to know the parts of the theatre, both on and off stage.

The theatre lobby is the first things theatre goer sees when they come to a production. This is where the appetizers, wine and socializing is found. The picture above is not a performance arts theatre, rather a movie theater. A THEATRE lobby is much more elegant...usually.

A box office is the place at a theatre or other artistic event where tickets are bought, reserved and picked up. Usually has someone working in the box office, there are also people who work for the box office throughout the week taking orders and doing organizational tasks.

This is the house, in case you're unaware the "house" is where the audience sits. Including a balcony and box seats if they're present, along with the orchestra pit and other odds and ends we will discuss.

As you could assume this is the stage. However, it gets a tad complicated. We have upstage, downstage, stage left, stage right and then backstage. There are many different types of stages, which we will talk about later. For now we are going to focus on a proscenium.

I know this looks just looks like a stage, but I wanted to focus on the things back stage. There are so many things that go on behind the curtain. We will not go into great details, but back stage and in the wings you will find fly rails, the dressing rooms, green room and so on. Like I said, I just wanted to plant a seed. We will elaborate later.

The light and sound booth pull the production together. These booths are usually in the back of the theatre or up in the balcony. They are either run by a team or at times can be done individually. They control the microphones, acoustics, ques and sound effects. Lights are pretty self explanatory.

In the theatre, catwalk is the name for a long, narrow passageway high above the stage and or audience. Catwalks are necessary in theatres to provide easy access for stage crews to suspend and maintain lighting, microphones and other miscellaneous things directed at the stage.

Recap

That's where we will stop today, but I would suggest that you use these study tools to familiarize yourselves with the terms.