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Nov 14, 2023 · Find hundreds of free play scripts for drama students of different ages and levels, genres and styles. Learn how to write a play and explore tips and resources from The Drama Teacher.
- Overview
- Brainstorming Your Narrative
- Deciding on Your Play’s Structure
- Writing Your Play
- Outline for a Play Script
You have an idea for a play script — perhaps a very good idea. You want to expand it into a comedic or dramatic storyline, but how? Although you may want to dive right into the writing, your play will be much stronger if you spend the time planning out your storyline, before you start your first draft. Once you've brainstormed your narrative and outlined your structure, writing your play will seem a much less daunting task.
Brainstorm the storyline, the main characters, and the central conflict of your play. Decide on your play’s structure, outline your acts and scenes, and add stage directions. Use proper formatting to ensure your play is easy to read, then reread, revise, and proofread your script to fine-tune the dialogue and action.
Decide what kind of story you want to tell.
Though every story is different, most plays fall into categories that help the audience understand how to interpret the relationships and events they see. Think about the characters you want to write, then consider how you want their stories to unfold.
Have to solve a mystery? Sometimes you can even have other people write the script for you .
Go through a series of difficult events in order to achieve personal growth?
Come of age by transitioning from childlike innocence to worldly experience?
Go on a journey, like Odysseus’s perilous journey in
Begin with a one-act play if you are new to playwriting.
Before writing the play, you should have a sense of how you want to structure it. The one-act play runs straight through without any intermissions, and is a good starting point for people new to playwriting. Examples of one-act plays include "The Bond," by Robert Frost and Amy Lowell, and "Gettysburg," by Percy MacKaye.
Although the one-act play has the simplest structure, remember that all stories need a narrative arc with exposition, rising tension, and resolution.
Because one-act plays lack intermissions, they call for simpler sets and costume changes. Keep your technical needs simple.
Don’t limit the length of your one-act play.
The one-act structure has nothing to do with the duration of the performance. These plays can vary widely in length, with some productions as short as 10 minutes and others over an hour long.
Outline your acts and scenes.
In the first two sections of this article, you brainstormed your basic ideas about narrative arc, story and plot development, and play structure. Now, before sitting down to write the play, you should place all these ideas into a neat outline. For each act, lay out what happens in each scene.
When are important characters introduced?
How many different scenes do you have, and what specifically happens in each scene?
Make sure each scene’s events build toward the next scene to achieve plot development.
When might you need set changes? Costume changes? Take these kinds of technical elements into consideration when outlining how your story will unfold.
Sample Outline for a Play Script
How do you format a script?
Using a writing software can be really helpful if you've never formatted a script before. You can also go online and look at examples of other scripts to get an idea of what the formatting should look like.
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ProPlay offers professionally produced stage plays that you can read online for free. Browse dramas, comedies, musicals, children's plays and more by playwright name or search terms.
May 29, 2022 · Learn the basics of play script format, from title page to dramatis personae, from setting and time to structure and scenes. Find out the differences between stage plays and screenplays, and how to format a play script with tools and templates. See examples of famous types of plays and how to write them in play format.
Browse By Age-group. Scripts for Kids. Scripts for Adults. Scripts for a mix of ages. (Within each of those categories, you can drill-down by age.) There are also. Scripts for Performance by Adults to Audiences of Children (some if which might be performed by older children to younger kids)
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