Are you looking for some help in writing a stage play? In this post, we explain how to write a good stage play through the following 10 top tips. Enjoy!
1. Keep the plot focused on an essential theme.
How it helps
Because plays run between 90 minutes and three hours, think of them as short stories or single movie installments rather than full novels. This means there is not enough time to develop overly complicated plots or side conflicts. If there are multiple conflicts, they are usually tied to a central theme of the whole play. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the main conflict is the family’s response to the father’s cancer diagnosis, and the side plots are mentioned only because they may impact the family dynamic.
How to include it
Theme becomes more important than conflict in a stage play because as explained above, there isn’t enough time or space to really dig into conflicts or character development. Decide what the theme of your play is and craft a story around that. Write the plot as a short story first and try to keep your page count to no more than 25 pages. This will force you to keep your plot concise and focused and will make it easier to turn the story into a play through dialogue and action.
2. Choose a central setting.
How it helps
Because set changes can be quite challenging when done in front of a live audience, stage plays tend to limit their settings. Think about A Raisin in the Sun, where the entire play takes place in the Youngers’ apartment. Most of the action takes place elsewhere and is discussed when the characters return home.
Those plays which do seem to have multiple settings get creative with their set designs. Rent uses scaffolding as part of the set to create different places through the use of levels (different heights) and provides a place for the band playing the music numbers to be seen and included in the show.
How to include it
Look back at your plot and try to limit it to no more than three different settings, or even just one if you can get away with it. Consider whether you could have your play take place in a living room or an apartment. In the introductory notes to the play, write a short paragraph (no more than five-six sentences) explaining what the setting is and why you chose it for this play.
3. Limit your character list.
How it helps
Because the conflict is quite limited, the characters involved will be quite limited. Most good stage plays have no more than four or five main characters: a main protagonist, a main antagonist, and ‘helper’ characters (including a ‘red herring’ character, if writing a mystery). Plays with more than five characters tend to reduce them as the play goes on so that only a few characters are left at the end.
How to include it
Keep a character list as you write the story. Make sure that you don’t have too many. If have more than five and you are writing a murder mystery (like And Then There Were None or The Mousetrap), use the plot to whittle down your character list to a final two or three characters: the killer, the survivor, and possibly the investigator. These three characters should also be the ‘main’ characters the story follows throughout.
You could also try to group them into 2 or 3 units so that there aren’t too many individual conflicts happening at once. For example, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, there are eight characters, but they are grouped into three units: the parents and the two brothers’ families. There are conflicts within each group (one of the brothers has a strained marriage; the other brother’ s family are greedy for the family fortune; the mother and father are concerned about the father’s health) but those conflicts don’t impact the overall theme, which is about whether living up to family expectations is as important as being true to one’s self.
4. Craft complex character relationships.
How it helps
As the conflict is focused on these few characters, their relationships need to be complex in order to flesh out the conflict. Think about Death of a Salesman: the conflict revolves around the father and the strained relationship he has with his sons. In Night of January 16th, where the prosecuting lawyer and the defendant have opposing beliefs beyond just whether the defendant committed the crime.
Your conflict must come, in large part, from how the characters interact, so their relationships must be complex enough to elicit that conflict.
How to include it
Look back at your character list and your plot. The smaller the list, the more complex and dramatic the relationships. Write out short back stories for how the characters are connected or know each other. Even if you don’t use elements of these back stories in the play, you can still use them when drafting compelling dialogue and character actions to add subtext and intrigue.
5. Limit flashbacks/flashforwards.
How it helps
The shortened time span of a stage play means there isn’t enough time to keep moving back and forth in time. Too many flashbacks or flashforwards will also confuse viewing audiences because they won’t know whether the scene they’re watching is happening now or at some other point in time.
The only time having more than one or two flashbacks is when the entire story is told through flashbacks. These are usually only done when the main character is telling a story to the audience, and the flashbacks are used to elaborate or dramatize parts of that story for them.
How to include it
Where there are memories or information from that past that needs to be included, try to do that through dialogue rather than a flashback. If you do need to include a flashback or flashforward, limit it to one or two and include stage direction (those actions the actors must do, which are often listed in brackets or italics in the script) that makes it obvious it’s not part of the present actions of the play. Some ways to do this are to have the character speak directly to the audience (what’s known as an aside) or have the flashback take place on a different part of the stage with specific lighting.
6. Focus on dialogue.
How it helps
The characters are the story in a stage play. It is their actions and, most importantly, their words which will help the audience follow the plot. This means that everything that happens has to be communicated through what the characters say to and about each other.
How to include it
Once you have crafted the short story version of your plot, decide how your characters will explain or develop those plot elements through their dialogue. Avoid ‘information dumping’ (e.g. “Did you hear about Mary, the neighbor’s sister who just got back from rehab after attempting suicide three months ago?”). This sounds too obvious and reminds audiences they are watching a play.
If you need to convey information that’s happened off stage, use dialogue that sounds more natural and subtle (e.g. “Hey, did you hear Mary got back recently?” “Oh, is she okay? I know her mom really struggled with what happened.” “Yeah, the doctors said she has mostly recovered but they should still keep an eye on her and take all the sharp objects out of the house.”). Remember that a play is like a snapshot of real life, so the dialogue needs to sound like real life rather than it being spoken for the audience’s sake.
7. Focus on action.
How it helps
The second most important part of a stage play is the action presented on stage. Think of stage plays like episodes of television shows: you need to show your audience what is happening more than describe it to them. Too much narration will drag the action down and, in the worst case, put the audience to sleep.
How to include it
The most important and crucial parts of a play are often the ones acted out for everybody to see. Identify the climax of your play, the moment that the whole play has been building up to, and make sure that scene is performed on stage. This is often towards the end of the play, usually in Act Four or Five if you are writing a classic five-act play.
You should then look at the plot leading to the climax and choose three important scenes that the audience needs to see happening for the climax to have the desired impact on the audience. These should become the basis for your other three acts. The first one needs to be when the main conflict gets introduced, the second scene needs to be when new information is introduced that complicates or elaborates on the conflict, and the third one needs to be the scene that leads to the climax.
Any other scenes that have minor impact on the plot can usually be described or hinted at in the characters’ dialogue or off stage.
8. Include only the most necessary stage directions.
How it helps
Stage plays are often less prescriptive than short stories or even screenplays in how characters should move because less needs to happen. This means that only the most necessary actions (such as when characters enter the scene or sounds are heard off stage) are listed in a script so that the director and actors can have artistic license to make decisions on where to move and how to perform certain scenes.
How to include it
Your stage directions should only be when someone enters or exits the stage (and, if necessary to the setting or plot, from which direction). If something happens off-stage that impacts the action on-stage, like a sound or some dialogue, then you can include that, as well.
When you are writing out the script, be sure to set these stage directions off on their own lines between or separate from dialogue (by using brackets or a different font style) to show they are stage directions and not part of the characters’ dialogue.
9. Use the off-stage effectively.
How it helps
Remember that the stage is just a snapshot of the world your story is depicting. Just because action is happening on the stage doesn’t mean things aren’t happening off-stage, too. Since there is only so much that can happen at one time in front of the audience, off-stage can be used to hint at other actions or characters important to the plot.
How to include it
Look at your plot and see if there are important elements that don’t need to be shown but alluded to. For example, if showing the murder happen isn’t as important as its discovery, then you can have someone off stage scream in shock and fear then have the actors on stage explain what happened through their dialogue.
10. Leave space for the director’s and actors’ interpretations.
How it helps
Think of the stage play as the skeleton of the play-going experience: it provides the structure but everybody else involved provides the living, breathing elements. This is why there should be little in the way of prescriptive stage directions or even obvious dialogue. The director and actors need to have room to create their own world, bespoke to their performance of the story.
How to include it
Keep the play itself limited to the dialogue and essential stage directions. If you feel there is information about the setting or character back stories that needs to be considered when planning the play, include those elements at the beginning, prior to the start of the play itself. This is important as those elements will help the director and actors imagine the characters and envision the set, but try to limit these descriptions to only what’s necessary for the acted story to make sense.