Question

How many scenes should be in each act of a play, and how many acts should a play have?

Answer 1

Hint: A play is a work of drama, that usually consists of mostly dialogues between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. It is a visual act with a storyline that is conveyed to the audience by the individuals performing it.

Complete answer:
Let us discuss how many scenes should be in each act of a play and how many acts should a play have.
Plays are broken down into acts. An act ends when the curtain comes down. A short play might consist of a single act whereas longer ones might have five or more depending up on the length of the play.

Acts are segments that are further divided into scenes. An act might comprise one scene or several, again, depending upon the length of the act. All acts can possibly use the same scenery. For example, you might have an act containing four separate scenes, each using the set of a classroom. At the end of the fourth scene when the act ends, the curtain goes down and the stagehands change the classroom scenery for something else.

The end of an act is a potential place to put an intermission — a small break that allows the audience to leave their seats and attend to themselves .

Note: As a rule an audience should be given a twenty minute intermission after every 45 to 60 minutes of stage time. For example, a traditional play consists of around 90 minutes of playtime which is divided into two or three acts broken by a single intermission. Ideally the intermission should occur half-way through the play so if the intermission is after the first act, the combined lengths of acts two and three should equal to that of the first.