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ACT:  A major division in the action of a play.  One, two and three act plays are most common today. Each act consists of several scenes or entrances, usually signifying a further level of development of the plot. There may be major changes of time, location, and/or plot developments between acts. A change in act is often represented on stage by curtains closing, lights going out, or an intermission.
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ACTION:  1)  What happens in a play; the events that make up the plot.  2) The physical movement of an actor.
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AD LIB:  When an actor improvises or makes up dialogue during a scene. Sometimes "ad lib" is put in stage directions by playwrights to indicate that actors should improvise dialogue at a specific point.
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ARC: The structure of a story, built around a beginning (rising action), middle (climax), and end (falling action and resolution). All plays should have a strong arc where something at the end is different than it was in the beginning.
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AUDITION: A (usually brief) trial performance by an actor, dancer, singer, or musician to demonstrate one’s suitability for a role. Similar to a job interview, auditions are often how performers compete for positions in a company or parts in a performance. Monologues are often used by actors to audition for plays.
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BLOCKING: Specific stage movements by actors, which includes entrances, exits, and any steps in any direction of the stage; developed through rehearsals under the leadership of a director. Can be suggested by playwrights through stage directions.
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CHARACTER:   A figure who undertakes the action of the plot.  Effective characters arouse the audience’s interest in them as people with whom they can identify.  In addition, effective characters are those which the audience can care about or sympathize with.  To this end, characters must be whole images rather than stick figures, with the attributes, feelings, and expectations of real people.  

When characters speak to each other, they reveal certain qualities about themselves and about their relationships with the characters to whom they speak.  Character also reveal themselves through what they do, through what other characters say to and about them, and through what they say to the audience in soliloquies and asides.  

        Major characters: Most central to the plot, fully developed, complex.

        Minor characters:  On the periphery, often one-dimensional.

        Stock Character:  A stereotypical character whose behavior, qualities or beliefs conform to familiar dramatic conventions, such as the braggart           soldier or wise old woman. 

        Protagonist:  Main character, the hero. This character is usually the most interesting and sympathetic and is involved in the conflict driving the             plot.

        Antagonist:  A character or a force, such as nature or society, in conflict with the protagonist.

        Dynamic Character:  One who changes in some significant way during the course of the play. 

        Static Character:  One who does not change in any significant way during the course of the play.   

        Flat Character:  One who shows only one or two traits or features, e.g. the faithful wife.  

        Round Character:  One who is a well-developed; a character seen from all sides, that is to say, in the round.  
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CLIMAX:  The point at which the conflict explodes.  The climax is the moment of maximum tension, at which a continuation of the conflict is impossible and necessitates some sort of change.  
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COLD READING: Performing a monologue or scene in an audition without ever having read it prior to the audition.
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COMPLICATION: An added element to a story that makes the main conflict more difficult for the main character. Complications can come in the form of dangerous settings, antagonistic characters, new information, or anything else that deepens the problem or heightens the drama. Complications can be added to raise the stakes.
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CONFLICT:   All plays focus on a conflict, a struggle between opposing forces.  The conflict might take place in the character’s mind, between individuals, between an individual and a social force (a community, school, church) or between an individual and a natural force (disease, fire, flood).  Often conflicts are about abstract philosophical choices, such as independence versus duty or individuality versus conformity.   Conflicts can be of multiple natures.   Conflict often forces characters to: act or not to act;  behave according to a personal moral code or external moral code;  compromise or refuse to compromise; grow and to change or remain more or less the same.  Also, conflict enables the audience to see deeply into the character’s personality.
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COSTUMES:  A character’s clothing tells a great deal about him or her.  What the character is wearing  does not necessarily tell us the truth about the character, but it does tell us what he or she wants us to know.  Clothes make a statement.  Playwrights may make suggestions to a costume designer and director through stage directions.
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CUE: A signal, such as a line, action, or sound, that alerts an actor to speak, move, enter, or exit. Stage managers also use cues as indications to initiate a light, sound or other technical element.
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DIALOGUE:  Spoken interchange or conversation between two or more characters, or, loosely defined, the speech of a single character.  Dialogue is language that reveals character and furthers a plot.    Dialogue is sometimes contrasted with action.   
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DICTION:   1) Diction refers to the way language is used by the playwright and the actor.  It is the playwright’s choice of words, as well as the play’s tone, imagery, cadence, verse, metaphor, etc.  2) Diction  refers to an actor’s  pronunciation of spoken dialogue--his or her phrasing, enunciation, and manner of speaking.
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DIRECTOR:  The person who stages the production; their duties includes script analysis and conceptualizing, supervising and guiding actors’ performances, and collaborating with designers to effectively tell the play's story to an audience. They are in charge of guiding a play from the page to the stage.
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DRAMA:  A play written in prose or verse that tells a story through dialogue and actions performed by actors impersonating the characters of the story. Sometimes contrasted with comedies, dramas can include comedic elements but usually have a more serious conflict and do not always end happily.
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DRAMATURG: A dramaturg has many roles in theatre; at various points they can:  serve as a company literary manager, ensure the play’s story is effectively communicated in production, serve as intermediary between a director and playwright, support new play development, research background and origins of the play; at all times, a dramaturg is focused on telling the story of the play successfully.
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EXPOSITION: Often included at the beginning of a play, exposition is dialogue or stage directions that explains and introduces the major characters, settings, back story, events and problems that the play will address. Effective stories weave exposition into the action so that the audience or reader can fully follow the story without being bored or confused by details.
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FORESHADOWING:  Hints, delivered through the characters’ lines and/or actions, of events to come that help create an air of suspense in the play. 
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IMPROVISATION: A performer creating a scene or elements of a scene (including movement, dialogue, characters, situations) with little or no preparation or rehearsal.
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MONOLOGUE:  A speech or portion of a play in which only one character speaks; oftentimes monologues are used in auditions. Monologues can be performed alone by one character, addressed to a silent or absent character, as a chance to hear a character’s uninterrupted thoughts.
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MOTIVATION:  Reason(s) that drive a character to think, act or speak in a certain way.  For a play to be effective, the audience must believe a character’s actions are justified and plausible given what they know about him or her.    
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MUSIC:  Music integrated into a play script has the power to move an  audience.  The music might be:  on-stage singing;  off-stage music, such as music wafting from a dance hall;  as well as incidental music used to underscore the play’s action or to set the mood during intermission.  Indirectly, music is present in every play--it is the rhythm of sounds or vocal tones such as shouts, the ringing of the telephone, conversation in the next room-- all of which create a symphony of sound within a play.  
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OBJECTIVE: A character's goal or desire in a scene or play. Objectives should always drive characters' actions and dialogue to help move the story forward. Opposing objectives create conflict in a play.
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OBSTACLE: A problem or complication that gets in the way of a character achieving his or her objective.
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OFF-BOOK:  When an actor has memorized his or her lines enough to not carry his or her script in hand during rehearsals. Directors often choose an "off-book" date for their actors by which the actor must have lines memorized.
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PLOT:  What happens, the sequence of events that take place in a story. The sequence of events usually follow a traditional pattern:  exposition, in which characters, relationships, setting are introduced;  complications (or rising action), in which matters begin getting complicated, conflict develops;  then climax,  the point of  great tension or the turning point, when dramatic intensity peaks;  then falling action, in which the consequences of the climatic events unfolds; and finally denouement (or conclusion), in which action comes to a meaningful end.

Plot, then, is not just events, but their meaningful arrangement.  Events are selected and arranged by the playwright to create dramatic impact.
 
Remember: Plot is what happens; theme is what the happenings add up to.

The plot must be logical, that is, the play’s actions must be plausible and events must follow one after another in an organic, rather than an arbitrary,  fashion. The plot must also move the audience along toward an ending that is not wholly  predictable and allows the characters alternatives and choices

                 Subplot:  A second plot, connected to, but also clearly subordinated to, the main plot.

                 Double Plot:  A dramatic structure in which two related plots function simultaneously.
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POINT OF VIEW: The way in which a character sees the world. These are opinions, feelings, and background experiences that influence the character's objectives, actions, and dialogue in the play.
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PROPS:  Objects used by an actor in a performance. These include any physical items an actor interacts with or uses during the course of the play.
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RAISING THE STAKES: Deepening or building a conflict for a character such that there is a dire consequence if they don't achieve their objective. The consequence will give the character a reason to pursue the objective throughout the play. Raising the stakes can make the audience more interested and invested in your characters. 
Example, the wolf in "The Three Little Pigs" has an objective: Eat the pigs. The stakes for not eating the pigs are go hungry for a day. To raise the stakes, the writer might decide that the wolf will not only go hungry for the day, but may not be able to feed his family if he doesn't catch the pigs.
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READ-THROUGH:  When actors read through the entire script with all involved artists present; usually on the first day of rehearsal.