outdoor
creative, imaginative, pretend

area
equipment
house (usually playhouse)
room (usually playroom)
group (usually playgroup in BrE), scheme (BrE)
The local council runs some good play schemes.

at play
Children spend hours at play.

in play
I only said it in play (= not seriously).

one-act
stage
radio, television
musical
miracle, morality, mystery, nativity (esp. BrE), passion
The children always perform a nativity play every Christmas.

school

review
The play is reviewed in most of today's papers.

play about
a play about teenage runaways

excellent, good
bad, poor
fair
dangerous, dirty, foul, rough, violent
He was sent off for foul play.

stop
Rain stopped play 40 minutes into the match.

in play
The ball is still in play.

out of play
He kicked the ball out of play.

at close of play, at start of play (in cricket)
At close of play he had scored 38 not out.

big
A double play ended the inning and the Red Sox were up.

final
the final play of the first half

defensive, offensive (both in American football)
running (in American football)
double, triple (both in baseball)
There were ten double plays completed.

execute, make, run (in American football)
the team's ability to execute a play
He made several nice defensive plays.
They ran 10 plays inside the 30 in the fourth quarter.

call (in American football)
The offensive coordinator has called 60 running plays and 44 passes.

let sb
The other children wouldn't let him play.

at (BrE)
Let's play at pirates!

with
The little girl was playing with her toys.

brilliantly, superbly, well
badly, poorly

learn to
teach sb to
be difficult to, be easy to
see sb, watch sb

against
These guys make the team very difficult to play against.

at
I've never played John at tennis.

for
He plays for the Chicago Bears.

in
She has played in every game this season.

with
She was playing cards with her mother.

beautifully, brilliantly, excellently, superbly, well
badly
together
live
The band will be playing live in the studio.

learn to
I'm learning to play sax.

teach sb to
be easy to, be difficult to
a piece that is relatively easy to play

hear sb
Have you ever heard her play?

Play is used with these nouns as the subject:
actor, actress, athlete, band, footballer, fountain, golfer, music, musician, orchestra, radio, side, song, station, team

Play is used with these nouns as the object:
ball, bar, baseball, basketball, blues, bridge, card, cassette, CD, character, chess, chord, circuit, clip, comedy, composition, concert, concerto, cricket, defence, dice, disc, drum, DVD, encore, excerpt, fanfare, festival, fixture, football, game, gig, golf, hand, havoc, hero, hockey, host, house, hunch, hymn, instrument, jazz, joke, lead, lottery, march, market, martyr, match, measure, melody, move, movement, movie, music, note, part, pass, passage, piece, politics, pop, position, rally, recital, record, recording, repertoire, role, round, rugby, run, scale, scene, score, selection, set, single, snooker, soccer, soldier, solo, song, sport, stroke, symphony, system, tackle, tape, team, tennis, tournament, track, trick, truant, tune, venue, video, villain, waltz, work