Scenes or Acts? Should you divide your play into acts, or just
into scenes? It's really a matter of personal taste, as long as
you recognize a few basic principles of play construction and
why we have these divisions in the first place. Virtually all
plays, as much as we rail against the way some screenwriters
have turned this into a cookie-cutter, divide into what has come
to be called three-act structure. Here's where you get to
impress your friends with your fancy verbiage: - The first act
is the Protasis, or exposition. - The second act is the
Epitasis, or complication. - The final act is the Catastrophe,
or resolution. Just as in screenwriting format, the middle act
is the longest. Aristotle (384-322 BCE.), whose Poetics
represented his collected observations on dramatic structure and
playwriting based on the practice of Greek dramatists, is
largely credited for three-act structure and has had long-
lasting influence on playwriting. Want to really, really impress
your friends? Tell them Aristotle didn't s