Watch: How to write a play
Plays are written to be performed. A script is a written version of the play.
Watch this clip to understand the basic structure of a play script.
How to write a play.
Narrator: Some stories are written for people to perform. They could be a roleplay, or a drama.
Mick’s going to star in our drama, so we need to write a script for him.
Scripts are written in scenes. Each scene has a title, a description of when and where it's set…
…and which characters appear.
Woah! Not too many characters!
In most writing, you might write things like 'he said', but in a script you just write dialogue.
We put the character’s name on the left, and what they need to say on the right.
Mick: I want to be a dancer!
Narrator: Think about how you want them to say it too.
Mick: I want to be a dancer!
Narrator: And if you want the characters to do something, you can write it in the script as a stage direction.
Like… Mick dances like a chicken.
How are scripts written?
Scripts
Scripts are written in scenes. Each scene has a title, a description of when and where it’s set, as well as the characters that appear
Dialogue (speech)
In most writing, speech punctuation is used to show when a character is speaking. In a script you just write the dialogue (what the character is saying) without any speech punctuation.
The character’s name goes on the left, followed by a colon (:). What the character is saying goes to the right of this.
For example:
Mick: I want to be a dancer.
Stage directions
A script doesn't just list the characters' lines, it also gives details of how an actor should say them and what they are doing in each scene. These are called stage directions and they will tell you how a character moves, or what they should be doing with an object.
Stage directions can be written in brackets before or within the dialogue. They can also be written below the dialogue.
For example:
Mick: (wiggling his hips) I want to be a dancer.
Now, watch this video for some top tips on performing a play script.
Watch: Tips for performing a play script
How to bring a script to life.
Director: Right Buff, let’s prepare for the big show by rehearsing your lines.
Make sure you speak clearly and confidently!
Buff McKenzie: Ahoy me hearties!
Director: Try using your voice in different ways.
You could speak loudly to announce something.
Buff McKenzie: Oh yeah, oh yeah, gather round!
Director: Or quickly to make something sound urgent.
Buff McKenzie: Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen!
Director: Or quietly for dramatic effect!
Buff McKenzie: We’ll feed ‘em to the fishies!
Director: Make sure you get into character,
Changing the way you move.
Or give your character attitude using body language.
And if it’s role-play, make up interesting things based on what you know about the character.
Buff McKenzie: Cleave him to the brisket!
Director: Or if it’s a play, it may be a comedy…
Director: Or it could be a tragedy!
Buff McKenzie: Noooooooo!
Director: Oh, amazing!
Watch: Performing a script
When you're performing in a play you can change the way you speak and move to make the character believable and more interesting to watch.
Plays can have lots of different genres, from dramas to comedies to tragedies, so the audience might laugh, cry or even stay silent because the action is so tense.
Find out more about writing a script
PRESENTER: Hello! Guess where I am? I’m on the set of a new teen drama called ‘Flatmates’. Let's go and have a look around!
Right now, the team are very busy getting this set to get it ready for filming, but behind the scenes there is a whole other team all using their creative skills in different ways to achieve different things.
Like the producer, who will be organising all the filming schedules or getting all the cast and crew assembled, or the art director, who will be putting those final touches onto all the props that will bring this set to life.
Now of course none of this would be able to happen without scripts - and on a production like this, there is a whole team of script-writers and script editors, and it's their job to put down on paper a vision that the rest of the team will bring to life for you to watch.
Can you imagine having an idea for a story in your head that will be transformed into a complete production by a huge team of people? I wonder how you get started on something like that. Here’s our script-writing master to tell us more.
Bronagh Taggart is one of the script writers on Flatmates, and has written for a whole range of children's programmes.
BRONAGH: One of the golden rules when writing for television is the 'show, don't tell' rule. What that means is that it's better to show something rather than to write lots of dialogue or lots of action.
For example, if you wanted to show that one of your characters was feeling scared, instead of writing lots of dialogue you could actually show that with something as simple as 'their hands are shaking'.
Or if you wanted to explain that there had been a fight, instead of writing a long scene filled with lots of action you could just cut to someone with a black eye or an injury.
Your challenge is to write a scene for your own TV show and to try and use the 'show, don't tell' rule. Go get creative!
PRESENTER: Oh, nice challenge. I can’t wait to get started on this one! But I’m going to need some help. I wonder who my helpers are?
This is Lucy and her creative superpower is vocal acrobatics! Next we've got Rosa and she can pull out a performance any time, any place! And finally it's Oliver, and he's got super-fast tapping feet!
So what do you think of this challenge? You like it?
OLIVER: Can we pick any programme we want?
PRESENTER: As long as it has recognisable characters that we can write lines for. So we'll choose a programme that we like, take two or three characters from that show, and then we'll write a scene that they can feature in.
Tell you what can help is choose a setting - something like a doctor’s waiting room, for example - and then it'll be our task to work out the story behind why they are there.
ROSA: So maybe like a shop or a grocery store?
PRESENTER: That’s a perfect idea! A grocery store would be great. I've got some scripts here that you can have a look at, see how they're laid out. While you take a look at those, here are a few things you're going to need if you would like to take on this challenge: A pen or pencil, some paper and some scripts to compare for layout.
Right, so now we know what a script looks like, it’s time to get some ideas down on paper.
I am loving these ideas! Now the next step is to write our scenes. We're going to work together as a group but you can work alone if you prefer! Look for ways to show, not tell! Remember TV is all visual so you don't need to write long conversations or dialogue. Try to think about how the character would say something and not how you would say it.
Well done, team! We have totally nailed this! Excellent work! How about we try and act it out?
ALL: Yeah!
PRESENTER: Who's going to play what part?
OLIVER: I'll be Timmy!
ROSA: I'll be Granny.
LUCY: And I'll be the Zookeeper.
PRESENTER: Does that mean I'm director? Perfect! Places please!
OLIVER: Don't worry, penguins! I'll set you free!
PRESENTER: He opens the gate and the penguins waddle out!
ROSA: Timmy, Timmy, where are you? It's time to get lunch!
PRESENTER: A penguin waddles past Granny B and she pats it on the head.
LUCY: Why are you holding hands with a penguin?
ROSA: It’s not a penguin, it's Timmy!
PRESENTER: If you enjoyed this challenge, there are loads more over on the BBC Teach website. You can design a chair, write a poem or produce a stop motion animation! Go on, get creative!
Activity 1
Activity 2
Watch this video about Robert Falcon Scott’s adventure to the South Pole.
Watch Robert Falcon Scott's journey to the South Pole.
MUSIC
FATIMA: Who shall we look up today?
OLLIE: What about an explorer who went to the South Pole?
Okay, sounds good. Holo-Lab, can we meet an explorer who went to the South Pole?
HOLO-LAB: Searching. Searching… Found. An explorer who went to the South Pole, Robert Falcon Scott.
FATIMA: Hi, Mr Scott, I’m Fatima.
OLLIE: And I’m Ollie.
ROBERT SCOTT: How do you do, Fatima? How do you do, Ollie? I’m Robert Falcon Scott. I set out in 1911 to be the first person to reach the South Pole. I knew that Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, also wanted to get there first. The race was on.
FATIMA: That sounds exciting.
SCOTT: And dangerous.
FATIMA: What happened?
SCOTT: We left Cardiff on a ship called the Terra Nova, in June 1910, with everything I needed for the expedition. We had problems right away. It was so incredibly cold; the equipment we brought with us wouldn’t work and the ponies couldn’t cope either.
FATIMA: What did you do?
SCOTT: We struggled on, the dogs pulling our sledges through awful weather and across difficult terrain. By the middle of winter, it was too cold even for the dogs so they turned back, leaving only five of us: myself, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Evans, to make the final push to the South Pole.
FATIMA: Wow! So there were only five of you, alone on all that ice?
OLLIE: And you had no way to call anyone? No radio, nothing?
SCOTT: That’s right; we had no way to communicate at all and had no choice but to continue on the trek South. Finally, on the 17th January 1912, we arrived at the South Pole.
FATIMA: So you were the first to get there!
SCOTT: Well, no. We saw the Norwegian flag flying and realised that Amundsen had beaten us. He had already arrived there on the 14th December.
OLLIE: Oh no!
SCOTT: Indeed. Now we faced the 800 mile journey back, knowing that we hadn’t been the first to get to the pole.
FATIMA: That must’ve been terrible for you.
SCOTT: Quite. It got even worse. The temperature suddenly dropped to minus forty degrees centigrade. That’s 45 degrees colder than the average winter temperature in the UK. Despite our insulating clothes made of canvas, wool and reindeer fur, the weather had become so extreme that it was hard to move. This slow progress also meant we didn’t have enough food.
FATIMA: What happened?
SCOTT: We lost Evans in mid-February. By March, Oates was very badly frostbitten and could not move very fast. Fearful he was holding us up, he bravely sacrificed himself in the hope we would survive.
OATES: I’m just going outside. I may be some time.
SCOTT: Our expedition ended on the 29th March 1912. We were just twenty kilometres from a supply depot. I left a letter for my wife.
OLLIE: What did you say to her?
SCOTT: I told my wife that I loved her and had no regrets about my journey. How it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. And although we didn’t make it back, we had the spirit to try. We took risks. Luck didn’t come our way but we were determined to do our best. That’s the most important thing.
Go out there and follow your dreams. I wish you all the very best of luck with whatever you choose to do in life.
OLLIE: Wow! What an amazing person!
FATIMA: I want to be a brave explorer.
MUSIC
Can you extend the story with a script? Think carefully about:
- what might happen next
- the key features of a play script
- stage directions to make the scene exciting
Top tip!
Stage directions can tell the characters what actions they must perform or how to say the dialogue (for example, shouting or whispering).
Activity 3
Imagine you are going on your own expedition and write your own script about getting to your destination. It could be a mountain, an ancient city or anywhere else that you can imagine.
Super challenge
Once you've written your script, have a go at performing it.
If you can practise with a friend or a member of your family, that would be great!
Activity 4
Watch this video about stop motion animation. Create (draw or make) the characters from the play script and then, using the script, turn it into a stop motion animation.
You can of course create your own script for your stop motion animation story – it’s up to you!
Find out how to create your own stop motion animation.
PRESENTER: Hi! Oh what’s going on here? This isn’t right – I feel a bit peculiar!
Well, that was strange! Anyway, I’m here in this animation studio to set you a challenge. This studio is amazing – the team use their creativity to make models and produce stop-motion animations for a whole range of films and adverts.
Stop-motion animation is when you take an object or a model like these and move them a tiny amount at a time - so I'm going to make this little mouse wave… so you would capture each movement with a photo. Then all those photos are pasted together by editors so that when you play them all back it becomes an animation that tells a story, like this!
It’s cool, isn’t it? Right, well, I’m not just here to see the incredible things that these guys have done: I want to have a go at creating my own animation, and I know the perfect person to give us some tips!
Nush is a BAFTA-winning animation director.
NUSH: There are a range of stop-motion animation techniques ranging from animating characters or models or even working with paint or drawing. But my favourite things to animate are everyday objects, giving them character and personality. What I first want to do is look at all the things I can move.
So, let’s say this peg- I'm thinking that it’s going to be a dog because it can move like this. But then I'm thinking I need to make this into a thinking character because it's only when you make it into a thinking character that you really bring out a personality. So I'm thinking this dog wants to find something to eat. So I'm going to get some tissue. If I do this action and I animate it so that the tissue slowly disappears while it's munching on it, it will give the illusion that the peg, or the dog, is eating the tissue.
Another thing to remember that's very important when animating is sound. We've created a character and we've given it an action, but when we put the two together and put a munching noise, we then know that the character, the dog, is munching and eating the food.
(MUNCHING NOISES AND A BURP)
NUSH: So your challenge is to create a thirty-second stop-motion animation using everyday objects you can find around your home or your school classroom. Just remember to use sound to bring out the personalities and the characters. Be playful, enjoy yourself and get creative.
PRESENTER: Aw, I love this challenge! So who’s going to be helping me on this one then?
This is Piya, and her creative superpower is reading, because knowledge is power!
Next up it's Gabriella who has some amazing jazz skills!
And this is Anushka, and she has a magic eye for colour and style.
Right, you three, are you ready to get started with our animation?
ALL: YEAH!
PRESENTER: Good, let’s get creative! You will need… A selection of everyday objects, some sticking and fixing things to hold your objects in place, a tablet with a stop-motion app and tripod.
First things first: we need to decide what object we are going to use. So we've got a selection on the table, which would you like to use?
GABRIELLA: Chopsticks… I think we can make this into a mummy giraffe, and then this can be Jeffrey!
PRESENTER: Who's Jeffrey?
GABRIELLA: The little baby giraffe!
PRESENTER: So Jeffrey is a little baby giraffe!
PIYA: I think we should use a cotton wool ball for the heads.
PRESENTER: I like that idea a lot, so we could have chopstick giraffe with cotton wool ball face!
GABRIELLA: And then he trips over that big marble.
PRESENTER: Jeffrey the baby giraffe trips over that big marble. Are we happy with that story?
ALL: YEAH!
PRESENTER: Shall we try and animate it?
ALL: YEAH!
PRESENTER: OK, pass the tablet! Fingers crossed!
You can choose any object you like, just whatever you have lying around that sparks your imagination.
Remember, you will need to take lots of photographs and make really tiny movement between each picture.
Aw, poor old Jeffrey! Pleased with that?
ALL: YEAH!
PRESENTER: It's really good! Right, now it’s over to you! Get creating!
Right, should we do another scene, or should we pick a new object?
GABRIELLA: Another object!
PRESENTER: All right, let’s do it!
If you enjoyed this challenge, there are loads more over on the BBC Teach website. You can write a poem, design a chair or even write a script for your favourite show. So go, on get creative!
Play our fun English game Crystal Explorers! game
Use grammar, punctuation and spelling skills to explore jungles, caves and tombs on your mission.
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