For example, going back to our earlier ‘Laura and Chad’ example we’d want to clearly establish early on that Jim is a bad egg, or at least that he appears to be. If it isn’t, they might get confused and wonder if they’ve missed something. The audience will expect the core issue behind the story to be revealed (or at least strongly hinted at) early on. A slow start won’t have your audience rushing out after five minutes - but don’t let them get fidgety. It’s best to get into the action quickly with a strong dramatic hook. PlayScripts has a large selection (you have to pay for complete scripts, but free samples are available) and Project Gutenberg has many famous plays filed under ‘Drama’. Any library or large bookshops will have a collection and some scripts are available on online. See Tips on writing a one-act play below for more on timing.Īs with screenplays the best way of learning about theatre scripts is to read them. Don’t worry about length too much, a television script has to fit into a specific time-slot (though streaming services like Netflix are more flexible) and a movie script should traditionally keep between 90 and 120 pages but within reason a stage play can be as long as it needs to be. The best way to judge length is to time yourself while reading it aloud. All other directions should be kept to a minimum.īecause there’s no strict format for a theatre script it’s harder to say how many minutes are taken up by each page. Also note terms such as stage-left and stage-right to indicate which direction characters enter and exit from. Stage directions are in italics to differentiate them from dialogue. Here the time-break has been used to include a match in the story without having to see one.Īs you can see the format is quite simple with character names written against the left-hand margin and their dialogue continuing on the same line. We have the intermission and when the audience is back in their seats Act II starts with the team returning to the locker room. Act I ends as the team goes out on the field. Let’s say your play is about a football team. Many playwrights use the intermission as an opportunity to introduce a time-break. Ideally the intermission should occur half-way through the play so if the intermission is after the first act, the combined lengths of acts two and three should equal that of the first. For example, a traditional play comprises around 90 minutes of performance divided into two or three acts broken by a single intermission. As a rule an audience should get a twenty minute intermission after every 45 to 60 minutes of stage time. The end of an act is a logical place to put an intermission - a significant break that allows the audience to leave their seats. The detective has come to ask questions about the death of Chad’s first wife.Īt the end of the third scene the act ends, the curtain goes down and the stagehands change the drawing room scenery for something else. Chad leaves.Īct I, Scene III: Detective Jones and Laura’s father enter the drawing room.
Laura leaves.Īct I, Scene II: Chad picks up a phone and makes travel arrangements to Shanghai.
Like this:Īct I, Scene I: Laura and Chad are in the drawing room discussing their wedding plans. For example, you might have an act containing three separate scenes, each using the set of a drawing room.
An act might comprise one scene or several, but all will use the same scenery. A short play might consist of a single act, longer ones might have five or more.Īcts are themselves divided into scenes. Plays are broken down into acts, and an act ends when the curtain comes down.