Street shows and open-air stage shows
The most active performance style of Taiwanese Opera now is the street shows because if any temple plans to hold a celebration, it will probably engage a Taiwanese Opera troupe to perform and this performance will be a street show or an open-air stage show. The main difference between a street show and an open-air stage show defined here is based on the "scale" and the style. The performers in the street show do not have a hard copy of script, and they have to play impromptu. In average, there are around eleven to fifteen actors/actresses and four or five musicians in a street show. On the contrast, there are more people attending the open-air stage show and they have a well-done script and they rehearse many times before the formal performance. These two types of performance have their own pros and cons, and actually they affect each other. A very noticeable thing is that most of the best actors of Taiwanese Opera today whether in a street show or an open-air stage show are trained well by performing good street shows for a long time.

Steps to perform traditional street shows
Following, several steps to perform traditional Taiwanese Opera in street show are described. Before a performance, an experienced performer tells the basic plot of the play to every performer. After knowing their own part, the performers then can play on the stage freely. Performers have to do make up and to prepare the costumes. Because the stages always high, the performers usually have heavy make-up in order to show their facial expression clearly. When the performance starts, actors perform on the stage in to the right order. When performing, besides expressing the basic plot, the actors have to add some special gestures of traditional opera, and sing the tunes. Sometimes, for the necessity of the plot, some performers have to brandish a sword or a lance. They have to decide what to do and what to sing at the right time when they perform. Usually, a street show has one matinee and one soiree per day, while an open-air stage plays only once per day.

Performance without a script
How can the performance be performed well without a script? Clearly, any one who does an impromptu performance must have a lot of training and experience. The traditional way to train a performer of Taiwanese Opera is quite simple, but the processes are very difficult. Many performers were sent into a troupe when they were very young, and they had to scrutinize how other senior performers play the drama and memorized all the things relevant to the whole drama. They had to know the story, the proper words for the different roles, specific costumes for specific roles, everything and everything. Of course, they learned how to sing, play, act, etc. well without a script. Being a good performer of this kind of street show or not is often based on whether the performer is talented, hard working and experienced. One can say that much of this type of Taiwanese Opera counts on the creativity and impromptu acting of the performers. These performers may not study in the school for a long time, but their language skills and knowledge of history are better than others. It is not difficult that people forget the existence of those musicians, even though the musicians have to be trained harder in order to cooperate well with actors. A good actor needs good musicians when she/he is singing during the performance.

Music
Both performers and musicians are important in Taiwanese Opera, because music is one of the main elements of Taiwanese Opera. As called "Gua-A-He", the Taiwanese Opera is a lyric drama. "Gua" in Taiwanese means songs and "He" means drama. As a lyric drama, Gua-A-He is characterized by its singing styles. As a result, music, singing and rhymes play important roles in Taiwanese Opera. The characteristics of the singing styles of Gua-A-He include how the actors pronounce the words, the rules of libretto, the variance of the tunes, etc. In addition, the performers sing in natural voice instead of in falsetto, which is used in some other Asian operas. Some people may have a stereotype that the music of Taiwanese Opera is full of weeping or crying. It is true that there are lots of crying or weeping tunes in Taiwanese Opera, but they are not the only tunes that Taiwanese Opera has. The main tunes of Taiwanese Opera are "Chi-Zi Diao", "Tza-Liam-A", and "Kau Diao", where "Diao" is the word for "tune". Chi-Zi Diao is also called as "seven words tune", because there are basically seven words in one sentence and four sentences is the basic unit of a song. Chi- Zi-A or Chi-Zi Diao is one of the oldest and the most important tunes of Taiwanese Opera. Tza-Liam-A is especially designed to sing a statement or a story, and the rule of Tza-Liam-A is more flexible than Chi-Zi Diao. In fact, almost all of these traditional tunes are very flexible. Singing a main tune with variant melodies corresponding to the situations and the librettos is the distinctive feature of the traditional tunes. In other words, there are infinite ways to sing these tunes. On one hand, the keys of the words are decided by their articulation, so that the final melodies are decided by the total words in the song.

An identical libretto, however, can be sung in different melodies by different singers or at different times. On the other hand, emotions like sadness and happiness can be expressed by the speed with which their tunes are sung. These tunes are touching and full of colors as determined by the singer/actors. With such degrees of freedom, the performers must simply keep one rule in mind, that is, the librettos must be sung in rhyme. It is easier said than done. The final words of most of the sentences should be in rhyme, and they should still preserve the meaning of the sentences. A good Taiwanese Opera performer is always able to sing a song with librettos in rhyme, and a good musician must be able to follow the way the performer sings. They have to cooperate very well.

In addition to the former tunes, there are numerous traditional tunes, which come from other performing arts such as "Nan-Guan" and "Lan-Tan". Furthermore, many tunes come from some folk rhymes or are newly composed for some special plays. These newly compositions may lack the freedom that traditional tunes have, but they are much easier to learn and to sing. Although they may be easier, the librettos of these tunes must still be sung in thyme. Actually, many new tunes are composed when television performances are produced. These new tunes, in fact, broaden the music of Taiwanese Opera. Those crying or weeping tunes were mainly composed during the Japanese occupation period, and this situation reflected the complicated history of Taiwan. The noticeable thing is that no matter how old or how new these tunes are, they all are full of Taiwanese flavor.

Other features
In addition to characterized music, Taiwanese Opera combines acting, mime, acrobatics, singing, and dancing. A large part of the Taiwanese Opera is all about subtlety and symbolism. A soldier on stage represents a troupe; a character tapping a tasseled stick at his side is riding a horse; headdresses denote status, wealth and power. Every stance, every special pose, every movement evokes an emotion or meaning. The actors must be versatile enough to perform, deliver spoken dialogue, dance and sing. They must know whole systems of posture and articulations of the hand, both free and encased in long- scarved sleeves. At present, the characters are often enacted by females; except for a few exclusively athletic roles. Most of the musicians, on the contrast, are males. The historical reasons are not very simple, but one of them is that the females have a better appearance after putting on costume and makeup.

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