One-Act Play

A one-act play is a play consisting of a single act, as distinct from a play divided into several acts, though it may itself contain one or more scenes; many run twenty to forty minutes, a length especially popular in writing competitions, and the form dominates fringe theatre programming, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Its roots trace back to ancient Greek drama, as in Euripides' farcical satyr play Cyclops, and before the nineteenth century notable examples included versions of the Everyman play alongside works by Moliere and Calderon; the form grew markedly more prevalent through the nineteenth century and saw a further surge in the twentieth, when many scholars came to regard it as an essentially modern dramatic form.