The elements of a drama | Reading | Khan Academy — Transcript

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1. 0:00hello readers today let us talk about
2. 0:04drama enter stage right and let us tread
3. 0:06the boards together
4. 0:08drama also known as theater or plays is
5. 0:11a specialized kind of story that is
6. 0:13meant to be performed if you've ever
7. 0:15seen a movie a television show or a play
8. 0:18or if you've ever heard a play on the
9. 0:19radio or through a podcast you've
10. 0:22experienced the magic of the dramatic
11. 0:24arts
12. 0:25writing a drama is different than
13. 0:26writing a poem or a story and that means
14. 0:28that reading one is different too so i'm
15. 0:30going to show you part of a short drama
16. 0:32on the khan academy website in order to
17. 0:34go through the parts of a play okay so
18. 0:37here we have the title of the piece my
19. 0:40unusual aunt but it's followed by
20. 0:42something you maybe haven't seen before
21. 0:44which is the cast of characters this
22. 0:47tells us who's in the play a 12 year old
23. 0:49named isabella and her aunt yasmin
24. 0:52now these are the characters that actors
25. 0:54will be performing in the drama there
26. 0:56may be other people referenced like for
27. 0:58example in this piece isabella refers to
28. 0:59her dad being asleep in scene two but he
29. 1:02never shows up on stage
30. 1:04a play is divided into scenes which you
31. 1:07can think of like chapters in a book
32. 1:09scenes are sections of a drama that are
33. 1:11separated by time or location
34. 1:14scene 1 takes place in the evening
35. 1:16outside scene 2 takes place at
36. 1:18isabella's house sometime later how do
37. 1:21we know that the setting and stage
38. 1:23directions so this italic slanty text
39. 1:27here in the brackets tells us where the
40. 1:29scene is set in time and space it says
41. 1:32evening isabella is walking her dog
42. 1:34stanley a bat dives down the name
43. 1:36isabella is in all capital letters to
44. 1:38make sure the actor playing isabella
45. 1:40notices and from this we know several
46. 1:42things isabella is in this scene she's
47. 1:44outside she's walking her dog and it's
48. 1:47night time so if this were a stage play
49. 1:49we'd maybe see a set that looks like
50. 1:51isabella's neighborhood she's walking
51. 1:53the dogs maybe we'd see a little bit of
52. 1:55sidewalk or a fire hydrant
53. 1:57there's more italics in this bit and
54. 1:59it's what are called stage directions an
55. 2:01actor wouldn't read this aloud during a
56. 2:03performance instead stage directions
57. 2:06tell the team putting a drama together
58. 2:08what is happening on stage so a bat
59. 2:10dives down that's going to be a puppet
60. 2:13or a prop operated by a puppeteer or a
61. 2:15stagehand and then we have this line of
62. 2:18dialogue spoken by isabella reacting to
63. 2:20the bat ugh since when do we have bats
64. 2:23in the neighborhood come on stanley
65. 2:24let's run home so characters have lines
66. 2:27the character name indicates which
67. 2:29character is speaking
68. 2:30sometimes you'll have a stage direction
69. 2:32just before a line of dialogue as we can
70. 2:34see in scene two and yasmine points to a
71. 2:37giant trunk before she talks but the
72. 2:40actor playing her wouldn't say pointing
73. 2:41at giant trunk aloud that's a physical
74. 2:44action the script is asking her to
75. 2:45perform these are the basic components
76. 2:47of a stage play the characters and their
77. 2:49descriptions the way the play is divided
78. 2:51into scenes the stage directions that
79. 2:53tell actors and others what to do and
80. 2:56the lines of dialogue that actors have
81. 2:58to deliver aloud these are the building
82. 3:00blocks of a play and now that you know
83. 3:02that you know just enough to be
84. 3:04dangerous
85. 3:05go write a play
86. 3:07tell it i sent you
87. 3:09you can learn anything
88. 3:10dave it out