Drama starts with a script. On the whole, a drama script is not complicated. Scripts vary in detail depending on the individual style of the writer and/or publisher, but most scripts will contain a character list, dialogue and directions.  

Character list
First you will almost certainly get a ist of the characters appearing in the drama. This may or may not also tell you a little bit about each character – like everything else in a script, this varies from writer to writer.

Quite simply it tells you who the people are. It is convention to print character names in upper case so they can be picked out in the script. (Voice off is just the writer’s quick way of telling you the audience never actually see the character, they just hear him offstage somewhere).

Dialogue
Essentially a script is just a list of who says what. In order. Starting at the top.

See how it works? Bob speaks, then Jen, then Bob. Simple. I’m sure you think I’m insulting your intelligence just by mentioning it, so I’ll carry on to the next item.

Stage directions
Directions are just the writer’s way of telling the director and actors what is going on when. Technically they may be scene directions (at the beginning of a scene describing the setting), stage directions (describing things that happen on stage, sound effects etc.) or character directions (describing a character’s expression, who they are talking to etc.). Writers use differing ways of presenting these but in a short script  they will probably be presented in parentheses (parentheticals, brackets) and/or maybe in italic. In a full-length stage play there may be very very few directions, you are supposed to be able to figure what is going on from the words, and the director fills in with creativity after that. Most novice actors accidentally read out the stage directions at some point and get laughed at. Think of it as a rite of passage and be more careful next time.

 The script will very likely start with a scene direction:

 CS is an abbreviation for Centre Stage – which means what you probably think it means. We’ll take a closer look at that in a moment. How the actor portrays that Bob has been crying is for the director to figure out – the director gets a lot to figure out.

 Stage and character directions may be sprinkled closely within the words:

The stage directions may mention where the characters are in relation to each other and the set (JEN goes over to the freezer) and may also (particularly at the beginning of a scene) refer to absolute positions on the stage. An old notation is used that is easy to unravel once you remember two things:

1. the instructions are for the performers, not the audience (so Stage Right is THE ACTOR’S right, not the audience’s);
2. in old theatres the stage sloped up at the back so that the audience’s view of characters at the back wasn’t obscured by characters at the front. So upstage is the back of the stage, downstage is the front.

 These combine to give us positions on stage:

• SL - Stage Left
• SR - Stage Right
• CS - Centre Stage (between Stage Left and Stage Right)
• DS -Downstage (or DSC    – Downstage centre)
• DSL - Downstage left
• DSR - Downstage right
• US - Upstage (or USC    – Upstage Centre)
• USL - Upstage left
• USR -Upstage right
• OS - Offstage (out of sight beyond SL or SR)
• BS – (out of sight beyond US)

A script may also use the term (voices off) to tell us that voices can be heard coming from somewhere offstage.

The stage directions give hints about what is intended to go on – but every performance venue and every production is different, and the director will make the final decisions.

The script, taken as a whole, tells you everything the writer thinks you need to know to perform this drama. Anything you aren’t told explicitly is for the  director and actors to think through for themselves. The author thinks you can work out an answer – and with a bit of belief in yourselves, you can!

This article is part of the occasional series How to do drama, a themed set which may (or may not) build up into an indispensible guide for the new or young drama group and its terrified actors, hopeful director and baffled script writer.

You can see our full collection of instantly-downloadable drama scripts at Drama scripts.