A street is a road with houses on either side. We use street for roads in towns, but not for country roads.

• Cars can park on both sides of our street

 
Roads used for both town and country.

• Cars can park on both sides of our road
  
• There's a narrow winding road from our village to the next one. (NOT . . . a narrow winding street . . .).
  

Note that, in street names, we stress the word Road, but the word before Street.

• Marylebone' Road.    
  
• 'Oxford Street.

After explain, we use to before an indirect object.

• I explained my problem to her (NOT / explained her my problem.)
  
• Can you explain (to me) how to get to your house? (NOT Can you explain me . . .?)

Long is most common in questions and negative sentences, and after too and so.

• How long did you wait?    
• I didn 't play for long.
• The concert was too long.

In affirmative sentences, we usually use a long time.

• I waited (for) a long time (I waited long is possible, but not usual.)
  
• It takes a long time to get to her house.

Much, many and far are also more common in questions and negative sentences.

We often use way ( = method) in expressions without a preposition.

• You're doing it (in) the wrong way
• You put in the cassette this way
• Do it any way you like.

In relative structures, we often use the way that . . .

• I don't like the way (that) you 're doing it.

After way, we can use an infinitive structure or of . . . -ing. There is no important difference between the two structures.

• There's no way to prove Iof proving that he was stealing.

• Don't confuse in the way and on the way.

If something is in the way, it stops you getting where you want to go.

• Please don't stand in the kitchen door — you're in the way.
• On the way means 'during the journey' or 'coming'.
• We'll have lunch on the way. Spring is on the way

A play is a piece of literature written for the theatre or television.

• Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare's early plays.
  

A game is, for example, chess, football, or bridge.

• Chess is a very slow game. (NOT . . . a very slow play.)

Verbs: people act in plays or films, and play games.

• My daughter is acting in her school play. 
• Have you ever played rugby football?

The Palace Theatre in Cambridge Square is a sort of halfway house on the ambitious tour which Sir John Gielgud is undertaking at the head of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company now presenting "Much Ado About Nothing" and "King Lear." Already the players have appeared in Vienna, Zurich, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague, and when their season at the Palace finishes on September 17th, they will go back to the Continent to give performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo and Copenhagen before returning to visit six major cities in the United Kingdom. Finally there is to be a short season at Stratford-upon-Avon. Qielgud has been deeply moved by memorable receptions in Austria, Holland and Switzerland. Neither he nor Peggy Ashcroft had previously played in Vienna, but they made new reputations overnight and could easily have stayed twice as long playing to capacity audiences. After every performance people in the stalls surged down to the front and continued to applaud most-enthusiastically until the company had taken at least fifteen curtains. That was not all; when Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft would leave the theatre by the stage door best part of an hour later, they would be greeted by several hundred people, waiting to clap and cheer them as they stepped into their car.

...In the theatre, the spectator is stationary as he watches and listens to the spectacle moving before him. If an actor has to give emphasis to a particular gesture or expression he must draw the attention of the audience to himself by taking up a conspicuous position, or by striking a pose or making a movement or pause that will lead the other actors to look at him; and whatever he does must be performed so obviously that it cannot fail to be observed by the most distant members of his audience. His makeup, even his stage-whispers, must be exaggerated for the same purpose.

The manager who was putting on the summer skit at the Casino had never heard of Carrie, but the several notices she had received, her published picture, and the programme bearing her name had some little weight with him. He gave her a silent part at thirty dollars a week.

Now, because Carrie was pretty, the gentleman who made up the advance illustrations of shows about to appear for the Sunday papers selected Carrie's photo along with others to illustrate the announcement. Because she was pretty, they gave it excellent space and drew scrolls about it. Carrie was delighted. Still, the management did not seem to have seen anything of it. At least, no more attention was paid to her than before. At the same time there seemed very little in her part. It consisted in standing around in all sorts of scenes, a silent little Quakeress. The author of the skit had fancied that a great deal could be made of such a part, given to the right actress, but now, since it had been doled out to Carrie, he would as leave have had it cut out.

Michael had started with Shakespeare. That was before Julia knew him. He had played Romeo at Cambridge, and when he came down after a year at a dramatic school, Benson had engaged him. Michael toured the country and played a great variety of parts. But he realized that Shakespeare would get him nowhere and that if he wanted to become a leading actor he must gain experience in modern plays.
A man called James Langton was running a repertory theatre at Middlepool that was attracting a good deal of attention, and after Michael had been with Benson for three years, when the company was going to Middlepool on its annual tour, he wrote to Langton and asked him whether he would see him.