Drama is a form of literature acted out by performers. Performers work with the playwright, director, set and lighting designers to stage a show.
Live actors act as someone else called a character.
| A play consists of: dialogue - where characters talk with each other action - what characters do in the play gesture - what the character shows through motion(s) and expression(s) |
A script, written by a playwright, gives the actors words and cues to perform the dialogue, actions and gestures of their characters on stage.
As a reader, you can only imagine what the gestures, expressions and voices of the characters are like. Remember you must imagine the "sounds," actions and scenery when you are reading a script.
Reading a play is like listening to a conversation, and using your imagination to guess at what the characters are like. This conversation is what actors will perform on the stage and will give you an idea of how other people, including the playwright, imagined the play to be.
Drama differs from short stories and novels because it is made to be performed by different actors in different locations throughout time. While the script remains the same, actors' interpretations of a single role may differ.
If you have read a play and then see it, you may be surprised because the play may be different from what you had imagined. This is similar to reading a story and then seeing a movie of that story-- it is rarely exactly what you had imagined.
There are two basic types of drama:
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Some of the first forms of documented drama come from ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks performed both tragedies and comedies.
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