After reading both one-act plays, you need to comment on the all of the following questions. Answers should be in complete, well-written sentences Comments are due APRIL 25 by midnight!!
What surprised you about the format/structure of the one-act? Explain by providing specific examples.
What do you think will be the biggest obstacle to overcome in writing a one-act play? Explain why.
Name 3 elements that all one-act plays should have in them and provide an example from one play that we read to support your ideas.
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it suprised me that the structure was easier to follow, not that many characters. In "Sorry wrong number" Mrs. Stevenson was the main character and she kept talking to different operators. it was a very funny play for being so short. once you realized that she was the woman getting murdured that night.
ReplyDelete1. The one act plays are alot longer than what I expected. Both of the plays we read were over 10 pages where I thought they would be a maximum of f pages.
ReplyDelete2.I think the hardest part will be coming up with the right lines to say. I think this will be tough because you cant just say anything it has to all come to a point in the end.
3.Multiple characters, Suspense, description. In Sorry Wrong Number the story made you think what would happen to the lady on the phone then the story finally told you at the end. There were many characters in Sorry Wrong number and there were alot of details like the description of characters and what they were doing.
1. I liked the structure of the one act because its not like confusing and switching, it's easy to follow. Like in "Sorry Wrong Number", i understood that it was an older lady sitting in her room next to the phone, calling operators constantly.
ReplyDelete2. I think the biggest obstacle about writing a one act play would be trying to keep it all within one area, not going to the doctor and grocery store and back home but instead one location.
3. One act plays should include drama, in one location and over a small period of time. In "Sorry Wrong Number", its definitely got drama, its located in one room, and its in the time frame of a few hours.
1) What surprised me about the format of the one act play was how many charaters where in the one act. In The Lottery there where whole familys like the huchcens(yes i know that is spelled wrong).
ReplyDelete2) I think the biggest obstacle to overcome in writing the one act play will be comeing up with dialogue for the charaters. I say this because you have to develop charaters in a play and that just seems hard.
3) The first element that should be in all one act plays is humer. All plays should make people laugh no matter how series. Like in Sorry wrong number with the Police offer duff not thinking the lady's call was important. The second element should be suspence, like in sorry wrong number you are just waiting for the lady to be killed. The third and last element should be well defined charaters, like the one's in sorry wrong number.
1. I was surprised because it all took place in one area and it was a short play.
ReplyDelete2. to keep it contained within one area.
3. You should make it short and sweet, in one location, and dramatic.
1. What surprised me about the structure of the one-act was the way the stories were short, yet they felt complete. Like in "Sorry, Wrong Number," the murder plot was simple and the story was short, but it didn't feel at any point that there were any pieces missing from the play. I was able to adequately understand the characters and what was happening even though little information was supplied to the reader.
ReplyDelete2. The biggest obstacle to overcome in writing the one-act will be giving the audience a story that is compelling to watch and short enough in length at the same time. I've never actually attempted writing a play, so I'm not entirely confident in my ability to do so.
3. Three elements all one-act plays should have:
-two or more characters
-conflict of some kind-for example consider the tension of the lottery drawng or the woman madly searching for the wrong number and someone to believe her
-adequate dialogue
My biggest obstacle in writing a one-act play will probable be making all the characters and their roles clear, and not confusing. i find a lot of the times that the scene is confusing and hard to imagine.
ReplyDelete3 elements that i think should be in all plays are one, imagery and making the characters visible. be descriptive so you can see the characters in your mind. it will be easier to follow. Mrs Stevenson is easy to imagine laying in her bed unable to move and scared of the murder. second, i think that characters should be limited, a small amount of characters will keep it simple. Again in "Sorry Wrong Number", it was the main woman, the operators and the police man. it was easy to read and understand the play. and last the element that all one act plays should have in them is, being exciting and have one scenery. The Lottery was harder to understand because they kind of moved around alot.
1. What surprised me about the structure of the one-act was the way the stories were short, yet they felt complete. Like in "Sorry, Wrong Number," the murder plot was simple and the story was short, but it didn't feel at any point that there were any pieces missing from the play. I was able to adequately understand the characters and what was happening even though little information was supplied to the reader.
ReplyDelete2. The biggest obstacle to overcome in writing the one-act will be giving the audience a story that is compelling to watch and short enough in length at the same time. I've never actually attempted writing a play, so I'm not entirely confident in my ability to do so.
3. Three elements all one-act plays should have:
-two or more characters
-conflict of some kind-for example consider the tension of the lottery drawng or the woman madly searching for the wrong number and someone to believe her
-adequate dialogue
it suprised me that the structure was easier to follow, not that many characters. In "Sorry wrong number" Mrs. Stevenson was the main character and she kept talking to different operators. it was a very funny play for being so short. once you realized that she was the woman getting murdured that night.
ReplyDeleteit suprised me that the structure was easier to follow, not that many characters. In "Sorry wrong number" Mrs. Stevenson was the main character and she kept talking to different operators. it was a very funny play for being so short. once you realized that she was the woman getting murdured that night.
ReplyDeleteThe One-Act form and structure was very different from what I am used to. I was suprised by the short length of the One-Act plays. I orginally thought a One-Act play would be longer and that there would be less stage directions. In The Lottery for example there were several examples of when the stage directions were longer and more detailed than the character's dialouge.
ReplyDeleteI think what surprised me most about the format of the one-act was how developed the characters could be, even if they only had a few lines. For example, Joe's sister in The Lottery was really well developed, even though she only had a single conversation with her brother in the play. You really got a good idea of how deep the rift ran between the two of them just from that small snippet in the story.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest obstacle in writing a one act play will be making something where there is an engaging storyline that can be wrapped up in a single act. My reasoning is that it would be easy to make a story that is interesting but can't conclude in one act, or a play that finishes easily in the confines of one act but isn't interesting enough to keep the audience's attention.
Three elements all one-act plays should have are an engaging story, developed characters, and a resolution of the plot. The Lottery has all three elements; with an interesting storyline that keeps the reader/audience, characters that are well developed even with short amounts of dialogue, and a resolution to the story by the stoneing within the single act.
1. it was very short, yet very detailed and really painted a very good picture of the scenes that were taking places, wihle managing to not jump around
ReplyDelete2. Creating dialogue that is real and believeable while at the same time maintaining good scenery and descriptive details. I feel it will be difficult to find a balance between the two.
3. Believable dialogue, dramatic, appropriate location for the story.
-The biggest obstacle to overcome in writing a one-act play is the development of a complex scene with stage directions coordinated properly. I think the stage directions will be difficult because of the detail it requires.
ReplyDelete-Three elements that all one-act plays should have are distinct characters, conflict, and a theme or message. Every character in The Lottery had a distinct voice and attitude that helped contribute to the play as a whole. The Lottery had conflict towards the end with the ticket drawing which made the play interesting. The Lottery had several themes one being: Tradition is not always an excuse to do something.
1. What I thought was most surprising about the one-act plays we read was the fact that they were so short, yet able to be serious and well thought out. Sure, they were simple, but they were definitely stories and not incomplete in any way. Like in the Lottery, most of it was taken up with small talk between the townsfolk, but the talking aided in the progression of the plot. And the shocking ending was so smoothly carried out for such a short play. You don't even realize anything horrible is coming up until near the last pages where Bill asks Tessie why she tried to hide Davy and she denies it defensively (and it's obvious she is lying). That sort of suspense is impressive, I think.
ReplyDelete2. I think the biggest obstacle to overcome in writing a one-act play is going to be the shortness of it. I've personally always found it hard to restrain my ideas from racing away with my pencil. And I have not written many short stories, for that reason. But this will be an experience, and hopefully fun and filled with a whole group's ideas and creativity, so I think the obstacle won't be too intimidating.
3. Three elements that all one-act plays should have in them are: simplicity (you don't want a really complicated story going on with subplots and side stories, I think, because it's just a one-act, and you'll never see these characters again; if you get too involved, your ending will be rushed due to your having spent so much time in all those other plots. Both The Lottery and Sorry, Wrong Number had a single focus: The Lottery, the lottery; Sorry, Wrong Number, an overheard planned murder), short length (a one-act play is called a one-act for a reason, and if it keeps going on and on you might as well write a full-out play; The Lottery and Sorry, Wrong Number were both very short), and smoothness (since the play is so short, I feel that a smooth ride is fairly important. While you can get away with choppiness and jarring in longer works since you have more time to explain and work out the plots, a one-act play only has so much time to approach a problem and resolve it. There's not time to mess around with many flashbacks or confusion).
What surprised me the most about the format/structure of the one-act play was mainly just how the authors managed to fit such a strong plot and characters with a twist in the plot that you weren't expecting. Also, I was very surprised that with the two plays that we read as well, both only used one scene in order to get the theme, message and entire plot acrossed. This both impressed me and surprised me.
ReplyDeleteWhat I believe will be the biggest obstacal while wirting our one-act play is going to be creating enough scenes and dialogue to actually complete the play. I think this is going to be the biggest obstacal because I know that, for me at least, it is quite easy to create a character, and to write from his or her point of view. However, I always tend to convey this through thoughts and emotions displayed by the character, and descirbing the scene in my writing. Therefore, these will be the hardest part I believe.
Three elements in which all one-act plays should have in them are Conflict, four Characters or less, and the Length. First of all, conflict is usually always a big theme in one-act plays because of how short they usually are. In the play entitled, "Sorry Wrong Number" conflict was clearly shown through the woman's frustration with operaters and her worry for a murder, that ended up happening to her, that she accidently overheard. The next thing is the amount of characters. I feel as though you really can't have too many characters in a one-act play just simply due to the fact that you are trying to convey a message or theme to an audience and many characters can become confusing. In both stories that we read there were many more than four characters. However, only a few characters really had a 'lead' role, and were very important. This helped the message come across in the ending plot line. And lastly length. A one-act play is usually pretty short. It is used to not only, get acrossed a message in a decent amount of time, but also not to bore the audience as well.
1) What surprised me the most about the one act play was the similarities it had to a multi-act play. The only big differences were that it was shorter, which is expected, and that there were more scenes. The dialogue is set up the same and the stage directions are the same. It still had either italics or brackets for the stage directions.
ReplyDelete2) I think that the biggest obstacle that I'll have to overcome in writing a one act play is that I can't split it into acts and then subdivide it into scenes. I think it'll be tough wrapping my head around having a bunch of small scenes because I always do a lot of planning and end up having masses amounts of story. With a one act, I'm going to need a complete story with a shorter amount of time.
3) I think all one act plays should have all faster paced scenes. If any part of a scene drags on it will end up being too long. Like in "Sorry Wrong Number" all the scenes had a pretty frantic Mrs. Stevenson, but she kept getting worse and worse until she became quiet from all of the tension and fear. I also think that they should keep the same story arc as everything else. There needs to be a good beginning, middle, and end. In "Sorry Wrong Number" it was all fine at the beginning but it got more and more suspenseful until it reached the end when Mrs. Stevenson was murdered and the resolution came from the sound of her murderers voice. One act plays should have a small cast, as well. There isn't enough time in a one act to introduce a bunch of characters. That's why it was smart to have the one main character, the two protagonists, and then a few smaller roles that didn't need much introduction in "Sorry Wrong Number."
1. I was suprised on how detailed they were for how short they were, but they implied a lot but were still colorful.
ReplyDelete2. I believe that our biggest obstical will be getting along as well as organizing how we will write the scenes.
3. Three elements could be;
Description: it has to be colorful but simple as well.
Conflict:so that the audience wont get bored.
Dialogue: We have to be able to understand whats going on.
1. There was so much that went into the play in so litle time. There was great detail, for example; In the play sorry wrong number when the woman was in the bed freaking out about her phone ringing over and over again you can really picture something going on that would rally take about 15 mins when it is really only about 2 mins.
ReplyDelete2.The biggest obstacle that I think we will run into is trying to get so much information into so llittle time. And being able to have the audience understand the play.
3.three things that should be in a one act play should be multiple people, in sorry wrong number there were many different people and you could tell their personalities. ANother thing is decription. Sorry wrong number you could really see what was going on , just like you in the room. And the last thing would be suspence. You didnt know exactly whath was going to happen and you were on the edge the whole time.