ONE ACT PLAY

• A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as

distinct from plays that occur over several acts.
• One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes.
• . In recent years, the 10-minute play known as
“flash drama”has emerged as a popular subgenre
of the one-act play, especially in writing
competitions.
• The origin of the one-act play may be traced to
the very beginning of drama: in ancient Greece,
Cyclops, a satyr play by Euripides, is an early
example.
ELEMENTS OF ONE ACT PLAY
• THEME
• PLOT
• CHARACTER
• DIALOGUE
THEME
• The one-act needs to have a theme or thought just as a
full-lenght does.
• What is the play about? Revenge? Self discovery?
• Characters, plotd, and sub-plots need to point to and
support the theme.
• Sub-plots might be missing in one-act plays.
 PLOT
• One act play is different from a full length play.
• In one act play, there is only time for one significant event.
• Determining place for hero, where all can be won or lost.
• Events leading to this, can be include without being shaown
to audience.
• The events that follow must be inferred or understood by
the audience.
CHARACTER

• There is not much are to develop all the characters.

• The hero or the protagonist's character needs to be more
developed and focused on.
• The antagonist cdan be developed toi show conflict.
• Some other characters can also be a little bit developed to
move the stiory forward.
 DIALOGUE
• Economy is the key aspect here.
• Each line must be crafted carefully to focus on the theme, the
incidebt abd the character of the protagonist.
• The dialogues need not be terse, but concise and full of
meaning.
• Dualogues irrelevant to the plot, must be altered or omitted
immediately.
 FEATURES
• Some common characteristics of most one-act plays are that
they are written in a concise manner, there are no breaks in
the action.
• They havce fewercharacters than a full length play.
• Most, often there is a single setting
• The action begins right at the start of the play.
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE ACT PLAY
AND FULL LENGTH PLAY
• A one-act play differs from a full-length play in that it has
only one act.
• This one act can contain several scenes, but is usually
significantly shorter than a full-length play, which hasseveral
acts, each of which may contain several scenes.