Drama vs.

Short Stories
 Drama

 When we were young, we all loved to dress up in

costumes and outfits, say as cowboys or as Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz. We sang and danced or defeated the
bad guys. We were the characters, the heroes and
villains.
 Drama—acting or simply reading characters’ words—
allows us to step into characters’ shoes and act like them.
 As we read, we can visualize what they’re doing, thinking,
and feeling because we can hear their words as we
interpret their emotions.
 Essential Question
How does drama provide the reader a
different experience than prose (short
stories, novels) or poetry?

How is drama different from television?

 Note Taking
Create a double bubble
map to compare
and contrast short
stories and dramas.
 Drama
 Comes from the Greek Word,
“Dran”
 Means “To do” or “To Act”
 The Doing/Acting Makes Drama
 Purpose and Definition
 A drama is a story written to be performed by
actors, using speech and movements in front of
an audience.
 Purpose of other genres
 Short story?
 Speech?
 Informational text?
Elements of Drama
 Playwright-the
author of a play
 Actors-the people
who perform
 Acts-the units of
action
 Scenes-parts of the
acts
 Genres
 Short stories  Dramas
 Fiction or nonfiction  for the stage (play)
 Realistic Fiction  For the movies
 Historical Fiction (screenplay)
 Science Fiction  For television
(teleplay)
 Etc.
 Elements of Drama
 The related events that take
 Plot place in a drama are
 Characters separated into acts. Most
 Setting plays have two or three
 Acts acts.
 Scenes  Within an act, there are
shorter sections called
scenes. A play can have
any number of scenes.
 Structure of a Drama –
Chronological Order
 All the parts of plot
 Exposition
 Rising Action
 Climax
 Falling Action
 Resolution
 Characterization
 Characterization-
playwright’s
technique for
making
believable
characters
 Dialogue
 An author tells a story mainly through a narrator, some
description, and dialogue between characters.
 A playwright tells a story primarily through dialogue of the
characters.

Dialogue is conversation between two or more characters.

 Dialogue in a short story= partly responsible for revealing

a character’s personality
 Dialogue in a drama = totally responsible for revealing the
characters s and also carry the story forward.
 Monologue
 Playwrights may also use a monologue,
which occurs when only one character
speaks for a while. The character may be
with others onstage or may be alone.

Christine from
Phantom of the Opera
 In the written form of a play, dialogue appears without
quotation marks. Practice reading this dialogue from The Monsters Are Due on
Maple Street:

 There are 2 characters in

Mrs. Brand (from her porch). the conversation—Who are
Steve? What
was that?
they?
 The name at the beginning
Steve (raising his voice and looking of each line tells who is
toward porch). Guess it was a talking.
meteor, honey. Came awful
close, didn’t it?  When you read dialogue,
keep track of individual
Mrs. Brand. Too close for my characters.
money!
Much too close.  Their words are
important clues to a
 from The Monsters Are Due on
Maple Street
character’s personality.
by Rod Serling
 Stage Directions
Mrs. Brand (from her porch). Steve?
What was that?
Steve (raising his voice and looking
toward porch). Guess it was a
meteor, honey. Came awful close,
didn’t it?
Mrs. Brand. Too close for my money!
Much too close.
 from The Monsters Are Due on
Maple Street
by Rod Serling
 Stage directions are
italicized words and
phrases contained within
parentheses or brackets.
 They are not meant to
be spoken aloud.
 For the actors—and for
a reader of the play—
they offer guidance on
what is happening and
how to understand the
meaning of certain lines.
 Stage Directions
 Mary. Yes, I agree with you.
(She really doesn’t.)

 As a reader, the stage direction “(She really doesn’t.)”

helps you understand feelings as well as events that
may occur later in the play.
 An actor delivering this line would show that Mary
doesn’t mean what she says by pausing before
speaking or moving in a way that shows she is not
sincere.
 Stage directions are important elements of drama that
convey meaning.
 Group Review Dialogue
 Describe what dialogue looks like in a
short story
 What does the dialogue reveal in a short
story? (hint: look back at notes)
 What does dialogue look like in a drama?
 What does dialogue reveal in a drama?
(look back at notes)