What is a play?
A play is a play that falls between the performing arts and the literary arts, that is, it can be seen and read.
It has a very varied structure, with many possibilities in terms of themes, language and scenery, so it is a flexible work capable of adapting to different formats through theatrical genres.
If you have seen a play live, you will have seen the special bond that is established between the actors, the story and the audience. The audience is able to enter into the plot and empathize with the characters.
Steps to perform a play like a pro
Step 1 – Find the script
The story you want to tell is the basis for your staging. You can find theater scripts in many places. Google is your friend and there are many places on the Internet where you can get scripts, including Tramody (wink, wink). You can also get them in hard copy at specialty bookstores. Remember that you will usually need permission from the author to perform it, as well as pay royalties.
Tramody plays are royalty-free if they are to be performed on a non-profit basis. If not, you should purchase performance bonds.
In the case of other Spanish plays, you will probably have to get authorization through the SGAE, which for amateur performances usually keeps 10% of the box office as royalties.
If nothing out there convinces you, you can always write the script yourself.
Remember that the script must be feasible to perform, within your context and possibilities. If this is the first play you are going to put on, don’t start with a musical that requires a live band plus a cast of actors who also sing and dance. Start with something simple, a short play with few characters.
Sample Play Script
Step 2 – Choose the actors
If this is the first time you are putting on something and you don’t have a cast, you can look for actors among your friends, family and acquaintances. Sometimes it’s hard to get people to sign up, but once they do, they usually don’t regret it.
You can also try placing ads (on the Internet, or physically in your neighborhood, school or university).
Even if you have a cast available beforehand, you may have to adapt the script to them. Remove or add a character, change the sex or age of another one…
Step 3 – Design the scenery
The play will have a number of sets that you will have to design and build. If it is a single set, you will have more freedom when setting it up, since the elements on stage will not have to vary substantially during the course of the play. If the play takes place on many stages, you can consider the use of a black box/camera, which consists of placing only some elements on the stage, without backdrops or walls, only flanked by the black curtains that delimit the stage.
The set design also involves other things, such as designing the lighting (what lights and spotlights accompany each moment of the scene) and finding the music and sound effects.
Step 4 – Schedule rehearsals
The rehearsal schedule for the play will depend mainly on the availability of the cast. In the case of amateur theater groups, where the actors usually have a day job, it is usually best to schedule rehearsals on evenings or weekends.
In my experience, the more intense and consecutive the rehearsals, the fewer hours it will take to put on the play.
Step 5 – Find a venue for the play.
Finally, you will need to perform the play. To find a venue for the play, the possibilities are endless. Look for contests, shows or competitions and present your play.
In Spain, for example, there are many towns and villages where amateur theater competitions are held.
Try to prepare promotional materials about the play beforehand, which you will need when you want to convince someone to let you perform in their theater.
The most important to get a stage for a play:
A recording of the entire play
A still shot of the entire stage with reasonable sound is sufficient. It can be a rehearsal, but if it is with an audience, the better.
A dossier with information about the play.
Genre, duration, synopsis, actors, technicians.
Other promotional materials
Any additional elements that can make the play shine, such as posters, promotional videos, web page.
Types of plays
A play is defined as a literary genre made up of dialogues between characters, where what they narrate has a plot that unfolds in three stages: exposition, crux and denouement.
This plot is developed in three acts where the end of each one of them is indicated by the fall of the curtain.
Each act is divided into scenes, which are marked when a new character begins. It is also defined as a production based on the presentation of a story through a theatrical performance.
Tragedy
It is a play that usually generates feelings of compassion, astonishment or terror in the spectators. These plays always have an unhappy ending.
The tragedy play is usually a play of long duration.
Comedy
These are the plays that come to show life from a funny and very cheerful point of view. They always have a happy ending.
The comedy play is also usually a long play.
Drama
A type of play that perfectly combines comic and tragic elements at the same time. It can have either an unhappy ending or a happy ending.
In these plays, the actions of everyday life are usually shown and deep themes are dealt with through dialogue and profound themes.
Types of dramatic plays
- Historical drama.
- Liturgical drama.
- Satirical drama.
- Elizabethan drama.
- Social drama.
Musical
The musical is a theatrical or film genre in which the action unfolds with sung and danced sections. It is a form of theater that combines music, song, dialogue and dance, and that is represented in great stages, like the theaters of West End (London) or in Broadway (New York).
Opera
It is a play presented through song and is usually of long duration. It can be comic, tragic or dramatic.
Monologue
It refers to a dramatic work that is performed by a single author, who sometimes plays several roles of characters involved in the story.
It is considered as a work with a single speech, in which the artist must reflect the feelings of the characters.
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedies are plays that usually mix tragic and comic elements. They usually have either a happy or an unhappy ending.
How to write a play?
There are as many methods for writing a play as there are authors, so it is difficult to find good manuals that have all the answers. Here are some of the questions you should ask yourself before writing a play:
Develop the story.
The story you want to tell is the basis for your staging. You can find play scripts in many places. Google is your friend and there are multiple places on the Internet to get scripts, including Tramody (wink, wink).
You can also get them in hard copy at specialty bookstores. Remember that you will usually need the author’s permission to perform it, as well as paying royalties.
Tramody plays are royalty-free if they are to be performed on a non-profit basis. If not, you should purchase performance bonds.
In the case of other Spanish plays, you will probably have to get authorization through the SGAE, which for amateur performances usually keeps 10% of the box office as royalties. If nothing out there convinces you, you can always write the script yourself.
Remember that the script must be feasible to perform, within your context and possibilities. If this is the first play you are going to put on, don’t start with a musical that requires a live band plus a cast of actors who also sing and dance. Start with something simple, a short play with few characters.
Once you have chosen the general outline of the script, you must define the main plot. Most stories are structured around the 3-act paradigm, coined by Syd Field:
Act I – Plot.
Introduces the characters and a first “incident” that will trigger the main events of the play.
Act II – Confrontation
Confront the main characters with obstacles that prevent them from resolving the conflict. Halfway through, they should find themselves at the furthest point from resolution, and towards the end something should happen that puts them back on the right track, straight into the last act.
Act III – Resolution
Set up a point of maximum confrontation in which the characters confront their opposites (be they circumstances or other characters), and resolve to reach the final denouement. Finally, it poses a moment of calm in which the balance is recovered and we know about the main characters after what has happened.
Define the characters
How many characters?
As few as will allow you to tell the story. Defining the main plot will give you at least 2 or 3 main characters, but you will probably need more to complete the story.
Also keep this number as low as possible. The greater the number of people, the greater the logistical difficulties in editing.
Also keep in mind that, unlike in novels or film, the cost of adding characters to a play can be very high. In a movie you can easily add a character with two lines, because the actor playing him will go to the set one morning, record his two lines and leave. In theater having an extra character means that the actor playing it will have to be at all the performances and participate in rehearsals.
How do you define the characters’ personalities?
Make them real people. Get to know them as you know people in real life. That doesn’t mean you have to know everything about their past, present and future, just enough to be able to portray them. Imagine how they talk, how they move, how they would react to different situations, everyday and extraordinary. Sometimes it helps me to take specific characteristics of people I know (especially ways of speaking and expressions) and include them in my characters.
Think about the scenes
The play will have a number of locations that you will have to design and build. If it is a single set, you will have more freedom when setting it up, since the elements on stage will not have to vary substantially during the course of the play.
If the play takes place on many stages, you can consider the use of a black box/camera, which consists of placing only some elements on the stage, without backdrops or walls, only flanked by the black curtains that delimit the stage.
The scenography also involves other things, such as designing the lighting (what lights and spotlights accompany each moment of the scene) and finding the music and sound effects.
Work on dialogues
Everyone has a different way of speaking. So should each of your characters. Be natural. If you want to write a modern play, avoid baroque language and large paragraphs that no one would say in real life. Avoid having the characters explain in voice what is happening. If you can tell something with actions alone, do it. Use annotations and stage directions to explain these actions.
Determine the length
What is the ideal length of a play?
In film, the convention is 90 minutes minimum for a feature film, and the maximum is three hours because exceeding that limit is dangerous.
Series, which oscillate between cinema and TV, can afford to last longer, but divided into chapters that some audacious people watch in a weekend.
But theater is different, it summons an audience for a single performance, even if it is repeated. The appointment has a time and a place to which one must inexorably go if one wants to participate in the show.
The actors are like athletes who, in a delimited space, fight against a determined and different destiny and do not always win. Theatrical durations are different depending on the plays and traditions.
A Shakespeare play can last up to five hours or more. Our Celestina was not performed in its time because it was supposed to be impossible to bring it to the stage, an irrefutable argument from any angle, not from the puritanism of the time (I have always dreamed of what would have happened if the tragic side of Celestina had taken root in our dramatic letters).
The traditional oriental theaters can make the plays last one night; Kabuki nowadays lasts 6 hours in its commercial and tourist version, and in the Greek theater the entire trilogy was performed in the time of a day. Theater is life.