CLEP Humanities : Performing Arts
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for CLEP Humanities
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Example Questions
Example Question #382 : Clep: Humanities
The playwright Anton Chekhov wrote which of the following works?
Pygmalion
The Cherry Orchard
A Long Day's Journey Into Night
A Doll's House
Waiting for Godot
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 #383 : Clep: Humanities
Elizabethan theater had none of what modern aspects of theater performances?
full sets
All of the other answers
extensive costume changes
a proscenium arch
stage lighting
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 #21 : Theater
The opera cycle known as The Ring of the Nibelung was written by __________.
Giuseppe Verdi
Georges Bizet
Benjamin Britten
Richard Wagner
Gustav Mahler
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 #22 : Theater
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical featuring The King of Siam as a character is __________.
Carousel
The Sound of Music
South Pacific
The King and I
Flower Drum Song
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 #23 : Theater
What is the Stephen Sondheim musical that takes inspiration from Roman comedies and satires?
West Side Story
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Company
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 #24 : Theater
Who is the actor, playwright, and theater owner who repopularized Shakespeare's plays during the eighteenth century?
Thomas Bowdler
William Davenant
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Foote
David Garrick
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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