What are the basic features of a play?

Answer 1

A play takes place on a stage of some sort, and for the benefit of an audience which would have seating of some kind in view of the stage. A play is performed by one or more actors. A play has a script, it is not entirely improvised (although it can include improvisational elements). Normally, a play has a producer, who makes the necessary arrangements for it to happen, and a director, who coordinates the actors into a coherent whole. Plays may or may not require backdrops, props, costumes, or special forms of make-up. Plays can be very complicated or very simple.

In terms of the script itself, plays normally have stage directions, for example, the action of this scene takes place in a living room which has a couch and two chairs and a coffee table; it also normally has dialogue. Actors talk to other actors, or in some cases, they address the audience, or just talk to themselves, pensively. They may deliver speeches, also known as soliloquies. There are a number of famous soliloquies in the plays of Shakespeare. Plays sometimes include singing, dancing, sword fights (which technically are also a form of dancing, when done theatrically) or other specialized activities. Some plays call for actors to eat meals, drink beverages, smoke cigarettes, or any other recognizable human activity. But plays can also consist of an actor who does nothing other than talk to the audience. There are many ways to conceive of a play.