Components of a Drama

Every story and every drama—whether it is a one-hour performance or a serial continuing for ten years—contains the same four components:

Characters: The people about whom the drama is created. (Sometimes,characters are animals or things, as in children’s stories, folk tales, and fables.) Most stories revolve around one major character whose strongest personality trait—which may be positive, negative, or both—is responsible for or contributes

to the dramatic conflict.

Plot: The chain of events or actions in which the characters are involved and during which the dramatic conflict develops setting: The place(s) and time(s) during which the action takes place.

Theme: The emotional focus of the drama. The theme reflects a universal moral value or emotion that is understandable to all people at all times, such as truth, courage, love, fear,greed, or envy.

Message: A specific message or lesson for the audience that is related to the theme. For example, a drama based on the universaltheme of the joy of parenthood might also contain thehealth message that both fathers and mothers need to bealert to their children’s health needs and even willing to forgo other activities in order to provide their children with proper care.

Entertainment -Except Educate dramas have a fifth component, which is not normally found

in dramas designed purely for entertainment, that is:

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