250 Useful Words Describing Theatre Performances

by Justin Cash · Published November 5, 2019 · Updated July 17, 2021

Below is a really useful list of over 250 words drama and theatre students can use in school essays to help describe theatre performances they have seen with the class.

Going to see a professional theatre performance is such a rich and rewarding experience for drama students. Junior students often come back to the classroom and discuss with their teacher aspects of the show they saw. Usually in the lower grades, this show has come to your school.

But in the senior years, where students normally go to an external venue to see a theatre show, coming back to class and analysing the performance can sometimes be a bit tricky. A written analysis or evaluation of a theatre performance can often be daunting task for many students. Even very capable students often have trouble using the most appropriate word or words to describe what they saw.

This is a list of adjectives that will help students describe a theatre show in general. It can also be used to describe in-house class performances fellow classmates. Using some of these words in the table below will help make that student essay even more powerful. there’s no reason why this list cannot be used by university drama or theatre students, also.

If you’re stuck on the meaning of a word on the list, use the dictionary link at the bottom of the table. Below that is also a list of other posts on The Drama Teacher for tables of words describing more specific aspects of theatre performances.

Words Used to Described Theatre Performances

abhorrent	handsome	proficient
absorbing	hard-hitting	profound
abysmal	heartwarming	purposeful
accessible	heavy	purposeless
accomplished	helpful	qualified
adequate	hilarious	questionable
admirable	historical	radiant
adverse	hollow	rank
airy	humble	ravishing
alarming	humourous	reasonable
amazing	immaculate	refined
ambitious	immersive	refreshing
amusing	important	regretful
appealing	impressive	relevant
appropriate	inadequate	remarkable
arresting	inappropriate	repugnant
astonishing	incompetent	repulsive
attractive	incredible	revolting
awful	ineffective	rotten
bad	ineffectual	satisfactory
barren	inept	satisfying
beautiful	inferior	scenic
boring	ingenious	seamless
breathtaking	insufficient	second-class
brilliant	intelligent	second-rate
broken	intense	self-indulgent
capable	intolerable	serious
captivating	irrelevant	serviceable
clever	irresistible	shabby
cogent	jolly	shaky
coherent	kindhearted	sharp
colourful	lacklustre	sheepish
commendable	lame	shocking
common	larger-than-life	skilful
compelling	lavish	skilled
competent	lazy	slow
conclusive	light	sluggish
convincing	lighthearted	snappy
dazzling	likeable	solid
decent	listless	sombre
deep	lively	sophisticated
demanding	loveable	sound
depressing	lovely	spectacular
direct	magentic	spirited
disgraceful	magical	standout
distasteful	magical	sterile
distinguished	majestic	sterling
divine	manic	striking
dramatic	marvellous	strong
dynamic	masterful	stunning
dysfunctional	masterly	sublime
effective	mediocre	subpar
elaborate	memorable	substandard
electric	mesmerising	successful
empty	mild-mannered	sufficient
encouraging	miserable	suitable
energising	modest	superb
engaging	moving	superior
enjoyable	multiskilled	suspenseful
entertaining	musical	sweet
enthralling	nauseating	talented
enticing	negative	tasteful
eventful	noteworthy	tasteless
excellent	obscure	telling
exceptional	off-putting	terrific
excessive	offensive	tremendous
exciting	optimistic	trite
exemplary	outstanding	triumphant
exhilarating	overpowering	trivial
extraordinary	painful	unbefitting
eye-popping	pathetic	unproductive
fantastic	pedestrian	unsuccessful
far-fetched	perfect	unsuitable
fast	personable	unusable
feasible	persuasive	useful
feeble	petty	useless
fine	picturesque	valid
first-class	pitiful	valuable
flawless	plausible	viable
focused	pleasant	weak
forceful	pleasing	weighty
frivolous	pointless	well-constructed
fruitless	polished	well-defined
functional	poor	well-made
futile	potent	well-rounded
gentle	powerful	wholesome
gifted	practical	wicked
good	presentable	woeful
grand	pretentious	wonderful
great	pretty	worthless
grim	professional	worthwhile