shadow play
noun
: a drama exhibited by throwing shadows of puppets or actors on a screen
called also shadow show
Examples of shadow play in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
What audiences see are silhouettes engaged in a shadow play of entwined hands and arched backs, sensual but not X-rated.
—
Rebecca Ritzel, Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2024
One episode hopscotches between the 1968 New York City garbage strike, a shadow play of the Ugandan genocide, and a mournful fantasy about the early AIDS crisis—all as background for the story of one marriage’s dissolution.
—Phillip MacIak, The New Republic, 7 Sep. 2023
When there were not enough surviving details to complete a scene like this, the restoration team simply highlighted the characters’ contours and colored them with a lighter shade of red than the frieze’s background—a sort of shadow play, according to the team.
—Sarah Belmont For Artnews, Robb Report, 5 July 2023
Flores’ cinematic shadow play would make Orson Welles proud.
—oregonlive, 16 May 2023
From the street, the indoor intensity appears like a shadow play of figures striding up and down those theatrical stairs.
—Curbed, 25 Feb. 2022
Dear San Francisco is powered by exhilarating acrobatics, choreography, spoken word, video projections, shadow play, and original music.
—San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Aug. 2022
The podcast’s first episode, played in the next room, would be augmented by projections of stars evoking Griffith Observatory; a shadow play; and onscreen images that stopped short of making a movie out of a podcast.
—Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022
Layered knits and easygoing silhouettes heat up among desert sun rays and shadow play.
—WSJ, 6 Mar. 2022
Rebecca Ritzel, Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2024
One episode hopscotches between the 1968 New York City garbage strike, a shadow play of the Ugandan genocide, and a mournful fantasy about the early AIDS crisis—all as background for the story of one marriage’s dissolution.
—Phillip MacIak, The New Republic, 7 Sep. 2023
When there were not enough surviving details to complete a scene like this, the restoration team simply highlighted the characters’ contours and colored them with a lighter shade of red than the frieze’s background—a sort of shadow play, according to the team.
—Sarah Belmont For Artnews, Robb Report, 5 July 2023
Flores’ cinematic shadow play would make Orson Welles proud.
—oregonlive, 16 May 2023
From the street, the indoor intensity appears like a shadow play of figures striding up and down those theatrical stairs.
—Curbed, 25 Feb. 2022
Dear San Francisco is powered by exhilarating acrobatics, choreography, spoken word, video projections, shadow play, and original music.
—San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Aug. 2022
The podcast’s first episode, played in the next room, would be augmented by projections of stars evoking Griffith Observatory; a shadow play; and onscreen images that stopped short of making a movie out of a podcast.
—Sarah Larson, The New Yorker, 4 July 2022
Layered knits and easygoing silhouettes heat up among desert sun rays and shadow play.
—WSJ, 6 Mar. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shadow play.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near shadow play
Cite this Entry
“Shadow play.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shadow%20play. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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