You can't but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will work better, because it's a narrative art form.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A good play puts the audience through a certain ordeal.
You have to learn to draw the same emotion you had when you wrote a song every time you perform it. Acting is the same way: You have to find those emotions and bring them to the surface, and then put them back when you're done.
The best way to show an emotion is not through a character's words, but their smallest expressions - to take what an actor would visually do and try putting that down on the page for the reader to 'see.'
To me, it's important to try and make an emotional connection with the audience.
I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.
The whole thing about writing a play is that it's all about controlling the flow of information traveling from the stage to the audience. It's a stream of information, but you've got your hand on the tap, and you control in which order the audience receives it and with what emphasis, and how you hold it all together.
That's the only way to do it. Just like an actor. You can get a great performance if you do a bunch of takes and edit it. You find the moments and string them together.
You instinctively discover how to entertain an audience.
There's nothing like a play. It's so immediate and every performance is different. As an actor, you have the most control over what the audience is seeing.
It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience.