What great plays have in common

The great plays of the Elizabethan theater have a few things in common:

Serious themes

Simple sets (a dressed stage)

Great costumes

Heightened language

Complicated plots

Big casts

Murder or marriage

The best of the Elizabethan plays were, in their time, popular and profitable. Even the unpopular plays were, most of the time, break even due to supper low overhead and savvy risk management practices.

Modern plays have in common:

Serious theses

Extravagant sets

Great costumes

Prose

Relatively simple plots

Small casts

Few murders or marriages

The best of the modern plays are not popular and are subsidized.

If I could change any one modern convention, it would be our use, or abuse, of language. Verse is the natural language of theater and plays to its strengths. Audiences love wordplay.

Take Eminem. Over eighty million albums sold.  More than Bob Dylan. I love Bob Dylan. I love Eminem.

Writing a good play is hard. Writing a good play in verse is only slightly harder, in the beginning, and then it's easier. You can learn how write verse. I can teach you how in one day. Getting good at it will take longer, but you can get good at it. Don't rule out writing in verse just because Shakespeare wrote in verse and everyone think he's so dreamy. If you're a playwright, he's your biggest competitor.

Beat him at his own game.