Crossword clues for afterpiece
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Afterpiece \Aft"er*piece`\, n.
A piece performed after a play, usually a farce or other small entertainment.
(Naut.) The heel of a rudder.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A piece performed after a play, usually a farce or other small entertainment. 2 (context nautical English) The heel of a rudder.
WordNet
n. a brief dramatic piece (usually comic) presented after a play
Wikipedia
An afterpiece is a short, usually humorous one-act playlet or musical work following the main attraction, the full-length play, and concluding the theatrical evening. This short comedy, farce, opera or pantomime was a popular theatrical form in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was presented to lighten the five-act tragedy that was commonly performed.
An example is The Padlock by Charles Dibdin, first performed in London in 1768.
Usage examples of "afterpiece".
Edgar, came jostling after to share her knee with her scripts and suckle at her bosom while she learned her lines, yet she was always word-perfect even when she played two parts in the one night, Ophelia or Juliet and then, say, Little Pickle, the cute kid in the afterpiece, for the audiences of those days refused to leave the theatre after a tragedy unless the players changed costumes and came back to give them a little something extra to cheer them up again.
An afterpiece to tragedy, it had supplanted the dying screech that quivered through the night.