DRAMA PRODUCTION

Drama production
Notes By : Ashish Richhariya
Course : FTNMP / BMM
Designation : Faculty at Thakur College Of Science & Commerce
Query : arichhariya30@gmail.com
Thakur College Of Science & Commerce,Mumbai
PPT BY : Mahek Joshi

What is Drama?
• Drama is the mode of portraying fictional or non fictional events
through the performance of written dialogue: poetry or prose.
• Drama can be performed on stage, films or radio.
• Dramas are typically called plays, and their creators are called
playwriters or dramatists.
• Drama originates from δρᾶμα - drâma, a Greek word that means
to act or take action.

Brief History of Drama
• 335 BC, drama has been performed since then.
• The two iconic masks of drama, the laughing face and the crying
face, they are the symbols of ancient Greek muses, Thalia – the
muse of comedy and Melpomene – The muse of tragedy.
• Playwriters like, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles
have contributed their work in the history of Drama.
• Aristotle is known as the father of modern Greek drama.

Greek Drama
• Ancient Greek took their entertainment very seriously, used drama as a way to
investigate the world they lived in and what it meant to be human.
• The Greek theatre history began with festivals honoring their gods. A god,
Dionysus, was honored with a festival called by "City Dionysia". In Athens, during
this festival, men used to perform songs to welcome Dionysus. Plays were only
presented at City Dionysia festival.
• Athens was the main center for these theatrical traditions. Athenians spread
these festivals to its numerous allies in order to promote a common identity.
• At the early Greek festivals, the actors, directors, and dramatists were all the
same person. After some time, only three actors were allowed to perform in
each play. Later few non-speaking roles were allowed to perform on-stage. Due
to limited number of actors allowed on-stage, the chorus evolved into a very
active part of Greek theatre. Music was often played during the chorus' delivery
of its lines.

Aristotle and Greek Drama
• Aristotle, a philosopher and teacher born in the first quarter of the
fourth century, to become not only the most important mouthpiece of
Greek dramatic criticism, but also one of the most important influences
in all the history of literature. He analyzed the plays of the fifth century
as well as those of his own time, classified the kinds of drama, and laid
down rules for the construction of tragedy.
• According to Aristotle, Tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is
serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished
with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in
separate parts of the play; with incidents arousing pity and fear,
wherewith to accomplish its katharsis of such emotions….Every tragedy,
therefore must consist of six parts, which parts determine its quality,
namely – Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Melody.

Elements of Drama
• Plot
• Character
• Lighting
• Diction
• Thought
• Spectacle
• Melody

Plot
• Refers to the action, basic storyline of the play.
Initial
Incident
Preliminary
events
Rising action Climax
Falling
actionDenouncement

Character
• The people, sometimes animals and ideas portrayed by the actors
in the play. It is the characters who move the plot or the action.
Characterization is the way an author presents a character.
• These are the elements added to define a character.
Costume Make up Dialogue Diction

Lighting
• Theatre stage lighting is designed to make the stage performance
visible to the audience, but the method used to light the stage
will impact on the way the stage picture is perceived and should
reinforce the overall dramatic impact of the production.

Diction
• The word choices made by an author and the enunciation of the
actors delivering the line, is the diction.
• Diction also tells us the origin of the drama, hence enhancing the
quality of the drama by making it relatable or representative.
Phrasing
expressionLingo

Thought
• What the audience learn from the play.
• The moral/story the audience takes back.
Moral or the
message

Spectacle
• All the visual elements in the play, everything that the audience
sees; sets, costumes, lights, etc.
The vision

Melody
• While music is often featured in drama, in this case Aristotle was
referring to the rhythm of the actor’s voice as they speak.

Forms of Drama
• The main two forms of drama: Tragedy and Comedy.
• Tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays were the theatrical forms.
• Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres.
Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject in comic manner.
• Tragedy : Where violent action leads to misfortune for the main
character.
• Comedy : Comedy plays were derived from imitation. The main
motive was to represent humor.

• Apart from Tragedy and Comedy, there are other forms of drama:
Tragic comedy and Melodrama.
• Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of
both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic
literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which
contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a
serious play with a happy ending.
• Melodrama deal with sensational and romantic topics that appeal
to the emotions of the common audience.
Tragicomedy
Melodrama

Types of Drama
• These are three main types of Dramas :
Theatre/stage
Drama
Stage Drama
Television Drama

Theatre Drama
• Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that
uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the
experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a
specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate
this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture,
speech, song, music, and dance.
• Some famous theatre dramas are: Hamlet by William Shakespeare,
Shakuntala by Kalidas.

Street Drama
• Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in
outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces
can be anywhere, including shopping centers, car parks, recreational
reserves, college or university campus and street corners. They are
especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are large numbers of
people. The actors who perform street theatre range from buskers to
organized theatre companies or groups that want to experiment with
performance spaces, or to promote their mainstream work. It was a
source of providing information to people when there were no sources of
providing information like television, radio etc. Nowadays, street play is
used to convey a message to the crowd watching it. Street play is
considered to be the rawest form of acting, because one does not have a
microphone or loud speakers

Television Drama
• In films and television, drama is
a genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more
serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually
qualified with additional terms that specify its particular
subgenre, such as "police crime drama", "political drama", "legal
drama", "historical drama", "domestic drama", "teen drama" or
"comedy-drama". These terms tend to indicate a
particular setting or subject-matter, or else they qualify the
otherwise serious tone of a drama with elements that encourage a
broader range of moods

Indian Drama
• The earliest form of classical theatre of India was the Sanskrit
theatre which came into existence after the development
of Greek and Roman theatres in the west. One theory describes
this development as an offshoot of Alexander the Great's Indian
conquest. The invading army staged Greek-style plays and Indians
picked up the performance art. While some scholars argue that
traditional Indian theatre predated it, there is a recognition that
classical Greek theatre has helped transformed it.
• Indian Drama has its main origin from Natyashastra. Natyashastra
is the source to all the art forms.

Stages of Production in Drama
• The production process for street play, theatre drama and
television drama differs in all the three stages: Pre production,
production and post production.
Pre
production
Production
Post
production

Street Drama and Theatre
Drama
Pre production – Development;
Selecting or Preparing a script,
casting, rehearsals, arranging
props. Marketing.
Production – opening night and
the performance.
Post production – This stage has
bare minimum – collecting props!
Television Drama
Pre-production-
Developing/Selecting the script,
casting
Production – Shooting
Post Production – Editing,
marketing.

Characterisation in Drama
• The act of changing voice, body language, movement, gesture etc when in role
is called characterization.
• All people are different. The actor must use their skills to portray a character
consistently throughout their performance. When creating characters you need
to consider the following:
• Voice: Does your character have an accent? What is the tone of their voice like?
How quickly do they speak? Do they have any vocal mannerisms that are
particular to them?
• Body language: This is what your character’s movements and way of using their
body says about them. A character who is very nervous and stressed may fidget
a lot or have their shoulders hunched up tight to indicate tension.
• Facial expression: Does your character move their face a lot? What does their
facial expression say about their character? Do they have a very expressive face
or do they try not to give much of themselves away?

DRAMA PRODUCTION

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