9. Choosing the Right Script for You - PLAYWRITING

Stage Plays

This brings us to the stage play. The stage play is wonderful because you can write it, grab a few friends, and perform it. You can even get in touch with the drama department at your school or a local independent theater to see if they might want to produce part or all of your newly written play. It doesn't take too much work to share your story with an audience, and it can easily be performed over and over by different groups of actors, and given a whole new life each time.

Though you need to have a well-developed picture of your scenes in mind when writing a stage play, you don't need to give us as much background description of the sets and scenery as you do in screenplays. Playwrights typically leave it up to the director and set designers to imagine what the stage should look like.

The stage play, though, comes with some limits that most screenplays and some TV scripts don't have. Getting that football game we mentioned earlier into a stage play would be tough to pull off. Plus, with every new scene, you have to give your characters time for a costume change and the stagehands time for a set change before the next scene starts. Because it can get expensive to build complicated sets, many stage plays take place with very little background decoration and very few scene changes. Sometimes an entire play is set in a couple rooms, much like a television sitcom. As with television, when there are very few visuals and only a handful of characters, the dialogue really has to be strong to carry the story.

On the other hand, because stage plays have less bells and whistles, writing them can be easier. Having fewer scenes, props, and effects means you will write less description. Plus, there will be less settings and scenes to keep track of!

To read more about writing a stage play, check out Intro to Playwriting in our Writer’s Resources section.