Saturday, December 01, 2012
TDF Launches Online Theater Dictionary
backstage.com: Are you new to the theater world and sometimes find yourself asking, "What does SRO mean? What is a breakaway? And where, exactly, is 'out front'?"
To answer these questions and more, the Theatre Development Fund, best known for operating the TKTS Discount Booths, has developed an online theater dictionary
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
This is such a great resource for people who are just starting out in theatre, and I wish that I'd had something like this back when I was a freshman in high school. Even to this day I'm still learning new terms and different names for things. But, in some way, part of doing theatre is learning hands on. It's not about being in the classroom or reading a blog on the internet, but about having someone ask you to grab such and such thing and you saying "Ehm. What is that?", and then through that asking you learn what it looks like. You ask what that thing does, and all of a sudden you have a distinct memory of what this thing looks like, and what it does and what it's name is. Maybe if someone was *just* starting out doing theatre and knew in advance that things might be a little rough terminology wise, the site would be very useful.
So this resource seems to be targeting people who are foreign to the world of theater, or at least very new to it. I guess what I'm wondering is, would these people then know about TDF and be able to find this Theater Dictionary? Don't get me wrong, I think the idea is awesome; I checked out the website and I like the way it's made, with a video and then a explanatory paragraph for each word as well as the ability to comment and ask questions. I just don't know how effectively it can serve its purpose, since, for example, I found out about it through a theater blog, which a theater newcomer won't necessarily be reading.
I think this is a great resource that everyone can easily access and use. Not only people who are new to theatrical area can enjoy watching the explanation, but also people who have question in terms can comment and get the answer. As for me, I also think I can get a lot of help from this website since I am still learning and sometimes I get terms that I am not used to hear. After I went in to this website and explored more details, I figured out how much TDF put effort to really teach others interested in theatre. The long paragraph following after the video is just another great idea to go deeper in explanation. I hope that this website keeps developing and adding more terms. Also, I hope this website tries to advertise more, so that more people know about this website and continue to use it more effectively.
I don't know really know if this is that great of a resource. While I understand that theater lingo can be confusing and extensive, if you have done theater long enough you have probably heard most of these terms. What this website does seem good for is allowing the theater world to bond online because of commonalities and to share inside jokes. The video's are pretty cute and if you already know the terms it is fun to go through and see how other people explain them.
This is a pretty interesting idea, especially since pretty much every theatre term cannot be found in Webster's or at least the way we use it can't. However, I completely agree with Camille, if you are so new to theatre that you dont know most of the lingo, then it seems odd that you would know about TDF and be able to use this. At best I could see someone googling one of the theatre terms thats in the Theatre Dictionary and stumbling across it that way.
However I could see it as a really good tool for High school level intro to theatre classes.
Also I like how they include a video in addition to a written definition, which seems like it would help cement the meaning of the word as it would appeal to both visual and auditory learners.
This is fantastic! This could be a great resource for anyone! Whether you are a beginner in theatre or someone who enjoys theatre who wants to know more or a veteran who just came across a new word that they would like to know about. Whoever thought of this idea is a genius and I really think this could be eye opening to everyone. I also like the fact that the website has a video sharing way of describing the word or phrase and an essay and blog for more commentary on the word. This is just brilliant!
This is a very nice website. I like the user interface and the content is well planed out and generally high quality. I love that all the words have a video to go with them. So many of the terms we have in theatre can best be explained with images or moving objects. So video is the perfect format to explain these sorts of terms. I suspect that many times though out my 4 years here at CMU, as well as later in my life I will be looking strange terms up on this site. My only concern with this website is that perhaps it will not be well updated and thus fall out of favor and become less reliable. Hopefully that doesn't happen and it will continue to be a great resource for theatre people everywhere.
Post a Comment