What is a Stage Play? and why would you write one? The general consensus is. Know your medium, that is, what ever Script you’ve written, set it in the best medium: Radio, TV, Film, or Stage Play. The banner above is my first Stage Play. It has already been submitted to The Palace Theatre Bedford and is further destined for the BBC Open entries, held each year. Both events are free to enter, if you don’t consider the time taken to write the Script that is. In my case that’s usually about four to six months. It’s a lot of investment of time, when you consider, it might not make the final stage of being produced. But writing is a strange business, one that is self-entertaining, granted, not everyones cup of tea. Stage plays have a very long history, some 2500 years. Since classical Athens in the 6th century BC, vibrant traditions of theatre have flourished in cultures across the world. Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western tradition; theatre is a word of Greek origin. Here in the UK, most early theatre evolved out of church services of the 10th and 11th centuries. It became a truly popular form around 1350 when religious leaders encouraged the staging of mystery cycles (stories from the Bible) and miracle plays (stories of the lives of saints). These were written and performed in the language of ordinary people rather than latin, in order to teach the mainly illiterate masses about Christianity and the bible. By the end of medieval times, many towns had specific spaces dedicated to public theatre. What followed next was secular drama. Following the Reformation in the 16th century – a movement that opposed the authority of the Roman Catholic Church – all religious drama in England was suppressed. Licences were issued to theatre companies allowing them to rehearse and perform in public, providing they had the approval and patronage of a nobleman. Notice the word patronage, this would be the foundation for what we now know as Theatre. Companies became known by the title of the patron’s household. The two most famous companies and fierce rivals were the Admiral’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In Britain one name stands above the rest, that of Shakespeare, 1594. He joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as an actor and their principal playwright. He wrote on average two new plays a year for the company. His earliest plays included The Comedy of Errors (first performed in 1594) and his first published work was the poem Venus and Adonis (1593). Shakespeare wrote many of his most famous plays for the Globe Theatre, which was erected in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. When the lease on the land at their playhouse, The Theatre, in Shoreditch ran out, the company decided to dismantle the timber frame building and rebuild it on the south bank of the River Thames, renaming it The Globe.

Present day Shakespeare is a multi-million pound venture and the Theatre a thriving business (putting aside the recent events of the pandemic.) 

Per aspera ad astra - Latin: Through hardship to the Stars.

ref: Wikipedia

The story of theatre - V&A