drop scene

American  

noun

Theater.

1. a drop curtain, often of painted or dyed canvas, located downstage and used as the backdrop for a scene played while the set upstage is being changed.

2. a scene or act played with less intensity than the preceding one.

3. the last scene of an act or play.

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Etymology

Origin of drop scene

First recorded in 1805–15

Example Sentences

The drop scene was used in the city’s only theater in the early 1800s to entertain audiences between shows in the early days of stage performances in New England.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 13, 2019

The drop scene was used in the city’s only theater in the early 1800s to entertain audiences between shows.

From Washington Times • Nov. 13, 2019

The frescoes are of the usual drop scene, barocco, academic kind, but where the damp has spared them they form an effective background.

From Ex Voto by Butler, Samuel

The arrangement is somewhat like that followed in many modern melodramas, where a scene not requiring properties is acted in front of a drop scene while scenery is being set behind.

From An Introduction to Shakespeare by MacCracken, H. N.

It comes at the beginning of a first series of pictures, or as a kind of drop scene between one series of pictures and another.

From Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Myers, F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry)