Play Writing Length

Play Writing Length
In this segment of how to write a play, we are going to be talking about how long to make your play. Plays are in all different lengths; there is no set rule. In fact, one of the shortest plays ever written they say, is by Samuel Beckett and it is called 'Breath' and it runs a whole whopping thirty-five seconds. That would be quite a short evening for you going out to see that play. But basically you are going to be faced with a choice of either writing a one act play or a full length play. Now think of how long the evening is. The evening would be maybe an hour and a half, hour and forty-five minutes; maybe two hours. So usually with one acts what they do is have an evening of one acts. You know, maybe three or five one acts. So a standard length might be anywhere between fifteen minutes and forty minutes; twenty-five minutes being perfect. Another option is to write a full length play. Now full length plays are divided into acts; usually two acts. You might find that is five acts but that is very unusual. A lot of the classics are broken down into three acts, giving you two intermissions, and even that is not done a lot today. Most of what you see has one intermission and it will give you two acts. And I think some of that is due to making the evening faster, making the pacing go faster it is much more concise with just one break there. Now the acts within a full length play can either run straight through or they can be divided into scenes. Now the main reasons you would want to break it into scenes if first of all locations. So let us say that you have an office set, and the lights go down and they change the set and then you are in their living room that night. So that would be the next scene. Now another change might be a change of time. So you have a couple fighting, battling it out in a giant pillow fight late into the night; the lights go down. When the lights come up there are pillow feathers all over the place and they are passed out on the floor. And it is simply a time change that you have there. Now plays come in all sorts of different styles; you have comedy plays, and drama plays, and tragedy and you have theater of the absurd, and melodrama, children's plays. Any of these different types of plays can either be a one act or a full length play. Your real decision comes in how long it takes you to tell your story. If it is more intricate and involved and there are more sub plots you may want a full length play. I think the rule of the thumb is that if you have a play of a certain length that fits as is, do not try to stretch it out into being more acts or a certain length. Keep it at that length where it is concise and moves along really well.