Tips for Playwrights: Using Stage Directions

Is it absolutely essential that a character is seated when they speak a specific line? If not, then don't bother to tell the director that they should sit. Does it matter if a monologue is delivered at upstage right instead of downstage left? If not, then don't even trouble yourself with remembering if "stage left" means left from the actor's perspective or the audience's. A wonderful thing about being a playwright is that the words are your responsibility - the actions are the responsibilities of the actors and the director. Concern yourself with writing the dialog first.

Why You Should Cut Them Out

Simply put, they don't do anybody any good.

Glancing over reader's copies of plays would suggest that stage directions are absolutely essential. Many plays are riddled with stage directions when you receive them from Samuel French or Dramatists Play Service. A little-known secret, however, is that these stage directions were not always put there by the playwright. In many cases, the stage directions are not the work of the playwright, but rather of the stage manager for the professional premiere. When the director and the actors set "blocking" (where actors stand, when they move, and other stage action) in their original production, the stage manager took notes on the blocking to make sure that it would be remembered. When the publisher later compiled the reader's edition, those notes were translated into the stage directions that were printed with the script. This is particularly true of older plays such as Greek tragedies and Shakespearian drama. Both Shakespeare and the Greek tragedians limited their stage directions to the absolutely essential.

It is helpful for the playwright to remember that there is a division of labor in the theatre. Playwrights provide the words, directors provide the concept and the blocking, actors provide the reading of a line. When a playwright writes "crosses stage left" in the middle of their dialog, they are performing the director's task. A director is supposed to have the freedom to decide when and where a character moves. When a playwright puts before a line of dialog "shouting," they are performing the actor's work. An actor is supposed to have the choice - with the input of the director - as to whether a specific line should be shouted or whispered.

Another important element for the playwright to bear in mind is that unless the play is represented by an organization that strictly enforces such a policy, stage directions are almost universally ignored. Any actor who has worked outside of high school theatre or the local community playhouse has heard a director at one point or another tell them to ignore the stage directions.

When You Should Put Them In

"Character enters." "Character exits." "Phone rings." "Answering phone."

If action is absolutely essential to the performance of the play, then it should be marked by stage directions. Telling a director when a character enters is not dictating action - it is informing the director that a character is about to become important to a scene. Noting that a character is answering the phone is not telling an actor how to say their line - it is informing the actor that their character is now addressing somebody who is not present.

When a stage direction is needed, keep it brief. Do not describe how the phone is answered. Do not describe how the character makes their entrance. Let the actor and the director make the decision of whether a character enters triumphantly or if they are downtrodden. If such things cannot be revealed through your dialog, then reconsider your dialog. The best results, I have found, come from limiting your stage directions to the simplest of sentence structures. Write them as subject and verb. Occasionally, as in "Character answers the phone," you may feel free to throw in a direct object. Indirect objects should be used sparingly. Adjectives and adverbs are right out.

The Exception

As previously noted, it is not always the case that stage directions are the work of the stage manager. Sometimes the stage directions are actually part of the original work. Some of Sam Shepard's plays feature his original stage directions, as do most of Eugene Ionesco's and all of Samuel Beckett's. These playwrights made the decision to make the action in their scripts as important as the dialog. Beckett even went so far in some of his plays as to map out the exact footpath and number of footsteps for an actor to take as they paced.

In these instances, the playwrights were not solely focused on the dialog - they were just as concerned about the action that would occur on stage. The action may have carried a symbolic meaning. It may have underscored a difference between an character's actions and their words. Whatever the case, the playwright made the decision that, yes, every movement was essential. In the case of such playwrights - as is the case with Beckett - there is usually a body that works to strictly enforce that productions of their plays follow the stage directions to the letter with neither addition nor subtraction from what is dictated.

If you choose to follow this road, then the further recommendation is to make sure that your actions genuinely mean something. Do not require a director to follow your stage directions if the actions they describe are simply the actions of everyday life. Sam Shepard's plays - when realistic - are usually focused on a twisting of reality that must be expressed. Ionesco and Beckett both went to great pains to describe the actions of their characters because they were writing in surrealist and existentialist modes, eschewing the traditional realism of the theatre. These actions had to be described because they had little to no genuine relation to the dialog being spoken.