Understanding how to properly format the work you’re writing so it’s clear and readable for the medium you’re using is really important. Writing for the screen is not the same as writing for the stage, the radio or a novel. In this blog I’m going to cover how to format your script when writing a theatre play.
1. Stage Position
The first thing to get your head around is where things sit on the stage. Below I’ve labelled each of the parts so you can see where parts of the stage are in a standard theatre.
BACK OF THE STAGE
Upstage Right Upstage Centre Upstage Left
Centre Right Centre Stage Centre Left
Downstage Right Downstage Centre Downstage Left
FRONT OF STAGE & AUDIENCE
As you can see, the positioning is a little different to what you might be expecting. This may also be because of which way round the left and right is, as well as which is upstage and which is downstage. Having this understanding solidly in your head makes it easier to understand which side you’re expecting a character to enter or exit from. It will also help the production team that will hopefully make your theatre play know which side they need to have particular props ready and so on. It just helps the flow better if it’s clear which sides and positioning people, set and props are meant to be.
2. Stage Directions
This is where we begin looking at the script itself. Usually, you can get away with writing a theatre play in a programme like Word. It doesn’t need to be particularly formatted like a screenplay does. If you’re familiar with writing directions in a screenplay, it’s not too dissimilar so that will set you in good stead. Theatre stage directions are usually in italics to make sure it stands out from the dialogue. It should look something like this:
Sauntering in from upstage left is DIANA with a whisky bottle in hand. She slumps down onto the sofa and begins to snore.
What you will also see is that I have put the character’s name in capitals and bold but not in italics. This means it’s easy to see when a character does something. Unlike in screenplays where we only put a character’s name in capitals the first time we see them, in theatre plays we write character names out like the above example every time. It’s also useful to write in present tense too as it helps with the flow of your writing. If someone just enters onto stage you can write it like this:
DIANA enters.
Just make sure when you’re introducing the set we’re seeing that it’s clear where everything is. Set it out a little like this at the start of the scene:
The stage is set with a sofa centre stage, a backdrop of a living room behind it. In upstage left there is a fancy lamp that is on. Beside it is an old desk covered in papers.
3. Dialogue
Now this medium is a little more forgiving of the wordy speeches as theatre is very well known for their monologues and long speeches. You only need to pick up a Shakespeare play to see that it’s been like that for a while. In regard to formatting your dialogue, it doesn’t necessarily need much doing to it. It just needs the character’s name of who is speaking to be in capitals and bold and then the dialogue to be not bold. Below is an example:
DIANA: Why didn’t you stop me dozing? RICHARD: Why is it anything to do with me? I’ve got other things on my mind.
You can always break it up with some action if you feel the need, but don’t feel like you have to. The way theatre plays work don’t need as much directions splitting the dialogue as you may be familiar with doing in screenplays. If you want someone to be doing something while they’re talking, you can format it like this:
DIANA: Why didn’t you stop me dozing? RICHARD: (sifting through important looking documents) Why is it anything to do with me? I’ve got other things on my mind.
4. Character Descriptions
In screenplays, it’s important to give details on age and an idea of what kind of person they are amongst the directions. For theatre plays, you don’t need to do that. You will have a specific character list that lists every character and a brief description of who they are. It would look something like this:
DIANA, mid twenties, a drunk housewife RICHARD, late twenties, a banker at Ze Bank
You don’t need much, but it’s enough to give the actors an idea as to what kind of character they’re playing. If you get stuck on how to describe your characters, it’s worth looking up character lists in the front of other plays for inspiration but do be sensible not to copy their exact description. You don’t need much description in here because there’s usually enough dialogue to give us an idea of who they are.
I hope this blog has been helpful in getting to grips on how to write theatre plays. If you have any questions, please do get in touch and I’ll do what I can to answer them.