You can also read this on Medium here: https://medium.com/@emilystepp12/the-simple-guide-to-formatting-a-stage-play-script-47cbf2876d25
As a writer, I’ve tried my hand at many different kinds of storytelling; but being a more visual person, I found myself drawn to scripts, both for the stage and the screen.
If you’re here, it probably means you tried googling “play format” and got a bunch of confusing, different formats — I know I did when I tried to figure it out for myself. “UK format?” “Radio plays?” “Where does the dialogue go?”
Every source I looked at seemed different. But after taking a college course in the craft, and completing my own short scripts, I thought I’d break it down into a much simpler guide. A few quick pointers before we get to the nitty-gritty:
Courier, or Courier New, are usually your go-to fonts
12pt. size all the way through, single-spaced (and no extra spaces before or after your paragraphs)
Of course, if the production company you’re sending the script to likes it a certain way, always be sure to follow their instructions. This guide is meant to be as a general format that should work for most places.
Title Page:
This is pretty straightforward; your title goes here, along with your name as the author (if you’re writing it with someone then you’ll put that there as well). Whether or not it needs to be centered is up to how the people you’re submitting it to like it, but I find a good rule-of-thumb is to keep it simple; left-aligned, with a colon and a short description of how long it is, like so:
Example Script Title: An X-Act Play by [Name(s)]
Make a new page and continue on to the Cast…
Cast Page:
This is also pretty simple; list your characters, left-aligned (preferably with their names in bold to make them stand out), followed by a short description of them. I’ve seen formats where the descriptions are on a separate column, but unless the production company you’re sending it to likes it that way, you’ll be just fine keeping it all in one column, left-aligned.
You don’t need to put their whole life story, or a complete personality profile, just a few basic descriptors, like this:
Character 1: A [gender], X years-old, working as a [job]; [Characteristics go here, these can be anything, like “emotional, prone to anger” or “stoic” or “lover of the finer things in life” or “no-nonsense type”; just a few quick terms that gives the audience (and the director) a basic idea of the character
Alright, now comes the hard part — the meat of your story…
Scene Headings:
Start with what Act it is, left-aligned and underlined, like this:
Act [Number]
Followed by the scene number, like this:
Act [Number], Scene [Number]
If you’re writing a short play that only has one act (which is generally between 30–60 pages), then just put the scene number.
Settings:
Underneath that you’ll want your setting; I usually put “setting” in ALL CAPS, to make it stand out, but you don’t have to; underlining or putting it in bold will also work. Describe your setting briefly — don’t worry, you’ll have time to go into detail in the next line.
This is the part where you set the scene (literally). Underneath your “setting”, you’ll want to indent this (I recommend using the “increase indent” button on your writing program, instead of tab, as it makes sure every line is indented the same amount).
Put it in italics, and then get into as much (or as little) detail as you want. Think about where we are — are we in a house? What room of the house? What kind of furniture is there? Where do the doors lead to? Even if the doors are technically off-stage, they do lead somewhere in the “house.”
Generally more detail is better than too little, as this helps the director and the set designer know what you mean — remember, your job as the writer is to be clear about what is seen and how you intend it to be seen; do you want the door on stage-right to lead to the kitchen? Say so, so that future productions will know what you mean.
Getting to the Action:
After you’ve set the scene, go to a new line and keep that same indention. You’ll want some kind of action here before you launch into a dialogue. If two characters are meeting somewhere, maybe one enters (from stage right or left) and approaches the other. Are they already sitting at a table? Keep it short, but direct.
After you know where your characters are in relation to the setting, you can get started on dialogue…
Dialogue:
Before you can have any spoken dialogue, you’ll need to say which character is speaking. Just put their name in ALL CAPS, center-aligned (no colon needed).
Underneath that, left-aligned, put their dialogue. The left-aligning is important here, as this is different from screenplays. It should look like this:
CHARACTER 1 (center-aligned)
[Dialogue here] (left-aligned)
Ending the Scene:
After your dialogue is all done for that scene, make a new line and indent it like you did for the action; this is where you’ll describe how your characters exit (if they exit at all).
Once your scene is done, it’s good to put a “lights go down” line (in the same format as the action), so the production team knows the scene is really over, and they can start getting ready for the next one.
And… that’s about it. Keep going through the events of your script, changing act/scene numbers as you progress. A few small things to keep in mind…
Other Notes:
If your character is doing an action while speaking, or speaking at a different pitch or volume than normal, you can use italics and (parentheses), center-aligned underneath the character name, to show that. My personal rule is, if a character is whispering, write it like this:
CHARACTER 1
(Whispering)
But if they’re getting up from a table, or doing something that requires more movement, it’s better to put it on a different line, and left-align it, like you would any other action.
If your dialogue flows well enough, you shouldn’t need to put too many things like “angrily” or “loudly”; those will be obvious by the tone or punctuation. But things like “in a high-pitch” or “imitating so-and-so” or “voice breaking” might need to be put in if you want the full effect to be realized by the actor.
Another rule-of-thumb: don’t describe an action to indicate a character’s tone shift. For example, if you want your character to shift tone and start being cold and standoff-ish, you might be tempted to say,
Character 1 crosses her legs (or folds her arms, or some other physical indicator)
and then keep going with the dialogue.
Since your actor is going to perform the lines (generally) in the way they want to, you’ll want to leave things like that open. A better way to think of it would be to describe how the character’s tone or demeanor changes, not what they physically do.
So instead of the earlier description, try,
Character 1 becomes cold and distant.
This leaves the actor open to interpret that and bring their own physical performance into it, and it ensures the director knows what you want to happen.
For the Ending:
When you reach the end, it’s a good idea to have a “the lights go down” line like in your other scenes, and then at the bottom, left-aligned, just put “The End”; this can be in bold if you want, or ALL CAPS, but it should stand out, so that everyone reading it knows that’s where it really stops.
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