The article presents an analysis of scientific approaches to the concept of "theatricality". The works of theater classics, in particular the works by masters of the avant-garde theater V. E. Meyerhold and E. B. Vakhtangov, the philosopher of theater N. N. Evreinov, and the works by modern theater researchers, among whom special attention is paid to the analysis of the works by P. Brooke, J. Feral, D. Barnett, who made significant contributions to the understanding of the concept of "theatricality". Based on the analysis of existing approaches to the concept of "theatricality", the author identifies the existing ambiguity in the interpretation of this concept, which is manifested in the existence of two key conceptual approaches to its definition in scientific knowledge. From the perspective of the first approach, theatricality is understood as an exclusively scenic phenomenon, from the perspective of the second – as a universal category of culture, related, among other things, to the nature of human existence. In order to expand the conceptual understanding of theatricality in the context of a cultural approach, the author formulates an author's definition of this concept, which takes into account both artistic and semiotic, constructivist and cultural specifics of the theater language.