LECTURE NOTES IN SPEECH AND THEATER ARTS (MIDTERM TO SEMI-FINAL COVERAGE)

The Concepts of Speech Communication

 The word communication originated from the Latin word communicare, which means “to impart”, “to share”, or “make
common.”
 Communication is a process where a sender encodes and imparts information via a channel or a medium to a receiver, who,
then, decodes and provides the sender a feedback.

SCHARAMM’S DIAGRAM OF FIELD EXPERIENCE

 Speech communication involves the production and perception of sounds used in spoken language. It is also called oral
communication.
 Communication means getting the message across. In speech communication, it involves not only verbal, or the words we
speak, but also non-verbal or non-linguistic symbols (also known as paralanguage).
 Listening is important in communication. By providing verbal and non-verbal feedbacks, or both, the listener becomes an
active participant in the communication process.

The Context of Speech Communication

 Intrapersonal
 It can be defined as communication with one's self, and that may include self-talk, acts of imagination and visualization,
and even recall and memory (McLean, 2005).
 Interpersonal
 It is the process of exchange of information, ideas and feelings between two or more people through verbal or non-verbal
methods. It often includes face-to-face exchange of information, in a form of voice, facial expressions, body language and
gestures.

Organs of Speech
 Respiratory System
 Your respiratory system is the network of organs and tissues that help you breathe. This system helps your body absorb
oxygen from the air so your organs can work. It also cleans waste gases, such as carbon dioxide, from your blood.
Breathing Exercise:
1. Sit up straight. Exhale.
2. Inhale and, at the same time, relax the belly muscles. Feel as though the belly is filling with air.
3. After filling the belly, keep inhaling. Fill up the middle of your chest. Feel your chest and rib cage expand.
4. Hold the breath in for a moment, and then begin to exhale slowly as possible.
 5. As the air is slowly let out, relax your chest and rib cage. Begin to pull your belly in to force out the remaining breath.
6. Close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing.
7. Relax your face and mind.
8. Let everything go.
 Phonatory System
 Phonatory System, also known as the larynx or “voice box”, where sound is produced includes: larynx and, specifically,
the vocal folds (also called “vocal cords”).
Phonation Exercise:
1. Think about blowing a birthday candles.
2. Begin to blow and then turn the breath into an “ooo” sound on comfortable pitch. Feel the tone begin in the breathing
muscles.
3. Repeat.

 Resonatory System
 The process of resonation allows us to produce different vowels. By changing the configuration of our throat, and mouth
through movements of the tongue, lips and jaw a speaker can resonators that enhance the energy of the sound
emanating from below.

Resonation Exercise: Pronounce the letters according to its size. (Biggest letters means the loudest sounds).

A a E e I i O o U u
 Articulatory System
 The lower jaw moves up and down to allow the mouth to open and close. Its movement also helps the tongue move to
higher or lower positions, and to makes the space inside the mouth bigger or smaller. All of these movements have a
great influence on the sounds we produce.

Theatre Arts
 A collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience or a real or imagined event before a
live audience in a specific place.
 The performers communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and
dance.
 The specific place of the performance is also named by the word “theatre” as derived from the Ancient Greek theatron,
which means “a place of viewing.”

Theatre refers to:

 The acting
 The building
 Play themselves
 Administrators
 Scenery
 Costumes
 Make-up
 Lights
The Difference between Theatre and Drama
 Theatre can refer to a whole theatrical production whereas drama refers to the plays themselves.
 The study of plays is referred to as dramaturgy.
 Theatre can mean a building, whereas drama cannot.

Theatre is a Collaborative Art

 Producer – finances, hiring, promoting, etc.
 Director – supervises rehearsals; controls and develops his/her “vision” of the play.
 Actors – perform the roles/characters.
 Designer – creates the visual aspects of production scenery, costumes, props, make-up, lighting, sound, etc.
 Builders – tech crew; build and paint the set; make the costumes, etc.

More Collaborators
 Crews – execute changes in scenery, light and sound cues, placement and return of properties.
 Stage manager – runs the “live” production.
 House manager – admits and seats audience.
 The playwright – his work is generally done away from the theatre building itself.

History of Theatre Arts

Classical and Hellenistic Greece
 The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated.
 It was part of a broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that included festivals religious rituals,
politics, law, athletics and gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals, and symposia.
 Participation in the city-state’s many festivals – and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a
participant in the theatrical productions) in particular – was an important part of citizenship.
 The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticisms, acting as a career, and theatre architecture.
 The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of tree types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.

Origins of Theatre in Ancient Greece

 According to Aristotle (384-322 BCE), the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus.
 The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10,000 – 20, 000 people.
 The stage consisted of a dancing floor (orchestra), dressing room and scene-building area (skene).
 Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics and clear delivery were paramount.
 The actors (always men) wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts.

Athenian Tragedy
 The oldest surviving form of tragedy.
 It is the type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.
 Most Athenian tragedies dramatize events from the Greeks mythology, though The Persians - which stages the Persian
response to news of their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE – is the notable exception in the surviving drama.

Athenian Comedy
 Conventionally divided into three periods, “Old Comedy”, and “New Comedy”.
  Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven surviving plays Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost
(preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis).
 New comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander.
 Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not
cause pain or disaster.

Roman Theatre
 Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans.
 Beacham argues that they had been familiar with “pre-theatrical practices” for some time before that recorded contact.
 The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude
dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus’s broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally elaborate
tragedies of Seneca.
 Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the Hellenization of Roman Culture in the 3 rd century BCE had a
profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for
the stage.
 The only surviving Roman tragedies, indeed only plays of any kind from the Roman Empire, are ten dramas- nine of them
pallilara – attributed to Lucuis Annaeus Seneca (4 b.c. -65 a.d.), the Corduba – born Stoic philosopher and tutor of Nero.