Chapter 4 - The Playwright
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This quiz covers information found in chapter 4 of Robert Cohen's Theatre Brief Edition, 7th Edition.
- 1.According to the text, we are all playwrights.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 2.A "playwright" is someone who:
- A.
Writes plays.
- B.
Makes plays.
- 3.The playwright work siwth two tools:
- A.
Pen and paper
- B.
Time and place
- C.
Dialogue and physical action
- 4.Which of the following is not a quality of a fine play?
- A.
Music and spectacle
- B.
Credibility and intrigue
- C.
Speakablility, stageability, and flow
- D.
Richness and depth of characterization
- E.
Gravity and pertinence
- 5.Compression refers to the playwright's skill in condensing a story into a theatrical time frame.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 6.Intensity relates to an author's skill in eliminating or consolidating characters, events, locales, and words in the service of compression.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 7.A fine play celebrates life.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 8.Playwrights are the most fully celebrated artists of the theatre.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 9.Neil Simon was America's first internationally celebrated dramatist.
- A.
True
- B.
False
- 10.Author of the modern classics All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and the Crucible, he was certainly America's most distinguished living dramatist.
- A.
Eugene O'Neill
- B.
Arthur Miller
- C.
Neil Simon
- D.
Edward Albee
- E.
Lanford Wilson
- 11.It can be argued that he is not only America's most successful commercial playwright but also the most successful playwright in the entire history of theatre.
- A.
Sam Shepard
- B.
Arthur Miller
- C.
Neil Simon
- D.
Edward Albee
- E.
Terrence McNally
- 12.The Zoo Story, a one-act, two character play set in New York's Central Park, brought him to prominence in 1959.
- A.
Sam Shepard
- B.
August Wilson
- C.
Terrence McNally
- D.
Edward Albee
- E.
Neil Simon
- 13.His plays are basically prose poems; the language is musical, and the subject matter suggests modern myth more than everyday reality.
- A.
August Wilson
- B.
Terrence McNally
- C.
Neil Simon
- D.
Lanford Wilson
- E.
Sam Shepard
- 14.When complete, his ten-play dramatic cycle will portray black American life within each decade of the twentieth century.
- A.
August Wilson
- B.
David Mamet
- C.
Tony Kushner
- D.
Sam Shepard
- E.
Lanford Wilson
- 15.Won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award in 2002 and became the longest-running Broadway play in two decades.
- A.
Venus
- B.
Proof
- C.
Topdog/Underdog
- D.
In The Company of Men
- E.
How I Learned to Drive
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