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[Gigabytebob]

exactly what it say human,elven and maybe dwarven civs should have large buildings were actor's and actress's have wonderful or downright awful plays or operas giving those who watch happy or bad thoughts respectfully or maybe there could large bands playing wondrous or bad music and aspiring actors or musictions might go there to hone their skills in the arts 

[KittyTac]

Or troupes can perform there!

[SixOfSpades]

Agreed. If we've got drinking songs in the tavern, sacred dances in the temple, gladiatorial combat in the arena, and books being written in the library, it seems rather odd to NOT have plays in the theater. Things I'd like to see:

• Touring companies can visit the fort, and make regular return visits (with most of the same members) every year or so, if the pay (food) is good.
• Touring company size would be capped at about 5% of the population of your fort. If you're too small to be likely to have enough audience members with the free coin to be worth the company's time, they'll take their show elsewhere.
• Freelance bards in your tavern could spontaneously form new companies, or join existing ones. Similarly, troupe members could decide they'd be better off as a solo act, & go it alone.
• Bards would have their talents grouped into 5 categories: Acting/orating, Singing, Music, Dancing, and Fighting/acrobatics. Companies may decide to specialize in just 1 or 2 skills, and seek to recruit new members with strengths in those areas--but it would be more common for them to be well-rounded, to have members with skills that complement each other. Also, all troupes should have at least a couple of members proficient at stage combat--they would be useful enough at actual combat to double as caravan guards when on the road.
• Bards with literary skills may visit your library, read a promising (new?) work, and dramatize it, or ask one of the local scholars to do the same. If the resulting work is successful, the scholar may be invited to join the company, to work other books into new performance material.
• All works would fall into one (or possibly more) of the categories of: Comedy, Tragedy, Drama, Romance, or History. Audience members would have different preferences for each type of material, as well as for each medium of presentation: Urist might admire a tragic song, but disdain comedic dancing.
• Audience members will have emotional reactions to performances: "Bomrek is feeling nostalgia after hearing a fine rendition of The Vermilion Flags." "Tholtig is feeling lustful after watching a display of The Lavender Petals." (This is probably implemented already, I haven't gone far into the new version yet.) All works will have specific intended emotional responses, which may change from one performance to the next: The troupe may decide to take a normally serious work and play it for laughs. How accurately the performance invokes the desired response depends on the skill of the performer(s).
• Some works (typically those of a more comedic / bawdy nature) would be more appropriate for taverns, while some (of a more serious / highbrow bent) would be almost exclusive to theaters.
• Use of leather masks for character roles! Acting troupes would also travel with lots of extra clothes (including weapons/armor) to indicate costumes, though I'm not sure what to do about scenery. If Paintings were a thing, they could hang painted backdrops.
• The Theater itself would be designated similarly to a tavern, and require the familiar "dance floor" (the stage), a seating area, and a "backstage" area. The seating area must be at least as large as the stage, the backstage must not be visible from the seating area, and the stage must be located roughly between them, with a walkable path to the backstage.

[EDIT:] Also, mystery and religious plays. The latter could be performed in a temple, as well as the theater. [/EDIT]

[PlumpHelmetMan]

It's already possible to write plays in the game, but not to perform them.

With that detail aside, I agree with this idea. Having the ability to put on plays in adventure mode in particular would be a blast.

[KittyTac]

And once the economy is implemented (20 years), you will have to actually pay them.

[GoblinCookie]

Theaters are trivial, they are essentially just a location where plays are performed. 

I don't think that plays are actually in the game.  I suppose the main issue with them would be deciding what characters would perform which roles, we would presumably reenact a series of historical event in the past and our characters would take on the role of the characters in question.