CLEP Humanities : Performing Arts
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for CLEP Humanities
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Example Questions
Example Question #3 : Answering Other Questions About Theater
The playwright Anton Chekhov wrote which of the following works?
The Cherry Orchard
Waiting for Godot
A Doll's House
Pygmalion
A Long Day's Journey Into Night
The Cherry Orchard
Anton Chekhov, born in Russia in 1860, was one of the pre-eminent playwrights of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Working closely with the director and acting theorist Konstantin Stanislavski, Chekhov's focus on subtext and tightly wound narratives proved highly influential in worldwide theater circles. One of his best known plays and a key example of his style is The Cherry Orchard, a play about a landed Russian family dealing with their newfound poverty.
Example Question #12 : Theater
Elizabethan theater had none of what modern aspects of theater performances?
extensive costume changes
a proscenium arch
stage lighting
All of the other answers
full sets
All of the other answers
Elizabethan theater, the era of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Johnson, was rather crude in its stagecraft. The stage was a platform that jutted into the audience without a proscenium, and extensive costumes and sets were not present. Additionally, lighting the stage was essentially unheard of, but sound effects and certain special effects were possible, particularly explosions and fire.
Example Question #1 : Answering Other Questions About Theater
The opera cycle known as The Ring of the Nibelung was written by __________.
Georges Bizet
Giuseppe Verdi
Gustav Mahler
Benjamin Britten
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
The Ring of Nibelung, commonly known as the "Ring Cycle," is the most famous composition by the German opera composer Richard Wagner. Written over twenty-six years, the four pieces that make up the cycle, The Rhine Gold, The Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods, all feature many of Wagner's signature elements: a mythic story, melodramatic devices, and a challenging score.
Example Question #5 : Answering Other Questions About Theater
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical featuring The King of Siam as a character is __________.
Carousel
Flower Drum Song
South Pacific
The Sound of Music
The King and I
The King and I
The King and I is a musical retelling of the story of the real life Anna Leonowens, who was governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam. The 1951 musical was one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's largest hits, and was subsequently made into a film starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner.
Example Question #6 : Answering Other Questions About Theater
What is the Stephen Sondheim musical that takes inspiration from Roman comedies and satires?
Company
West Side Story
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Gypsy
Sunday in the Park with George
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Stephen Sondheim based his 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum on the Roman comedies of Plautus. The play, set in Rome itself, centered on the humorous machinations of a slave. The play was another success after his previous work Gypsy and West Side Story, and got turned into a film also featuring the play's star Zero Mostel.
Example Question #7 : Answering Other Questions About Theater
Who is the actor, playwright, and theater owner who repopularized Shakespeare's plays during the eighteenth century?
Samuel Foote
Thomas Bowdler
David Garrick
Samuel Johnson
William Davenant
David Garrick
The fortunes of the plays of William Shakespeare underwent a severe cratering during the Restoration era of the late seventeenth century. The era's over-the-top performances and focus on farces made Shakespeare's works seem out of place. David Garrick, the preeminent actor and theater impresario of the eighteenth century in England, introduced a naturalist style and new effects in stagecraft which also helped repopularize the work of Shakespeare.
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