Producing Plays.  Any class or organization which has followed the various forms of dramatics outlined thus far in this chapter will find it an easy matter to succeed in the production of a play before an audience.

The Play.  The first thing to decide upon is the play itself.  This choice should be made as far in advance of performance as is possible.  Most of the work of producing a play is in adequate preparation.  Up to this time audiences have been members of the class, or small groups with kindly dispositions and forbearing sympathies.  A general audience is more critical.  It will be led to like or dislike according to the degree its interest is aroused and held.  It will be friendly, but more exacting.  The suitability of the play for the audience must be regarded.  A comedy by Shakespeare which delights and impresses both performers and audience is much more stimulating and educating than a Greek tragedy which bores them.

The Stage.  The second determining factor is the stage.  What is its size?  What is its equipment?  Some plays require large stages; others fit smaller ones better.  A large stage may be made small, but it is impossible to stretch a small one.

Equipment for a school stage need not be elaborate.  Artistic ingenuity will do more than reckless expenditure.  The simplest devices can be made to produce the best effects.  The lighting system should admit of easy modification.  For example, it should be possible to place lights in various positions for different effects.  It should be possible to get much illumination or little.

Scenery.  No scenery should be built when the stage is first erected.  If a regular scene painter furnishes the conventional exterior, interior, and woodland scenery, the stage equipment is almost ruined for all time.  It is ridiculous that a lecturer, a musician, a school principal, and a student speaker, should appear before audiences in the same scenery representing a park or an elaborate drawing-room.  The first furnishings for a stage should be a set of beautiful draped curtains.  These can be used, not only for such undramatic purposes as those just listed, but for a great many plays as well.

No scenery should be provided until the first play is to be presented.  Certain plays can be adequately acted before screens arranged differently and colored differently for changes.  When scenery must be built it should be strongly built as professional scenery is.  It should also be planned for future possible manipulation.  Every director of school dramatics knows the delight of utilizing the same material over and over again.  Here is one instance.  An interior set, neutral in tones and with no marked characteristics of style and period, was built to serve in Acts I and V of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Hangings, furniture, costumes gave it the proper appearance.  Later it was used in Ulysses.  It has also housed Moliere’s Doctor in Spite of Himself (Le Medecin Malgre