Script Format: A Page Actors Can Read on Their Feet

A novel manuscript is written for one reader, going at their own pace. A performance script is more like a set of instructions passed around a busy workshop: it must be clear, short, and easy to use. When you send your pages to an experienced director or to working actors, they’ll know within seconds whether you understand the form. If your script looks like prose with the “he said” tags removed and the names in bold, you lose credibility on page one — and probably any serious consideration.

Reading at the Stand: Why Layout Matters

At a reading, actors often perform in dim light, with small clip-on lamps on their music stands. While they listen for another actor’s cue, watch the director, and keep their balance, they can’t afford to lose their place in a dense block of text. The standard script layout isn’t just a professional custom; it keeps the performance from falling apart:

• Use 12-point Courier.

  Set the script in a 12-point typewriter-style font, such as Courier Prime or Courier New, where every letter takes up the same width. It’s easy to scan, and the eye finds its place again quickly after glancing up at another actor.

• Number every speech and every sound effect.

  In rehearsal, the director needs to say “Let’s go from line 18,” not “the third paragraph down on page twelve.” Number each speech in the left margin, and give sound effects their own separate numbers (FX 1, FX 2, and so on). Put each character’s name in capital letters at the left, with the speech beside it.

• Leave wide margins, and never split a speech across pages.

  Leave a left margin of 1¼ to 1½ inches so the pages fit in a binder or folder. Never let a speech run from one page onto the next. A split sentence makes the actor hesitate and can add a noisy page turn right into the performance.

Directions and Sound Effects: Keep Them Separate from the Speech

The surest sign of a novelist new to playwriting is the urge to tell the actors how to feel. In a working script, the little notes in parentheses are about how to deliver a line, not about the character’s psychology:

• Use parentheses only for how the line is spoken.

  Keep them to practical changes in delivery: (off-mic), (overlapping), (whispering), (low, urgent). Don’t prescribe emotions such as (wistfully) or (with quiet despair). That oversteps the playwright’s job and gets in the way of the director and the actors.

• Give every sound effect its own numbered line.

  Foley this, Foley that — everywhere you’ll see this word “Foley.” Don’t fret: it’s just theater talk for sound effects, made either from recordings or, more often, by hand with real objects right in the room. Never bury a sound effect inside a speech or a stage direction. Give each one its own numbered line, such as FX 9:, in capital letters.

  The numbers matter because the director will want to practice just the sound effects — skipping the dialog between them and jumping straight from one sound cue to the next. Clear numbers let whoever makes the sounds (the “Foley operator”) follow along without reading every line. Besides marking the cues in the script, make a separate one-page list of all the sound effects in order.

A Sample Page: From The Light in Washington

Here is how a stretch of a reading script looks. Notice how the line numbers, character names, and speeches line up in columns, and how the sound cue stands on its own line. Notice, too, that (low, urgent) and (quietly) tell the actor how loud and how fast, not what to feel.

18  FREDDIE (NARR):  He slips it down deep into his waistcoat pocket, over
                     his heart, until the chain vanishes beneath his lapel.
                     And his great hand reaches my cheek like the soft caress
                     of a wing. He looks right into my eyes. Outside our front
                     window the street is already turning dark. A horsecar
                     rattles somewhere far off, and a wagon rolls by. But
                     the haze is gone from Da’s eyes. Now, he’s got that look
                     which means he wants something. Sometimes it means there
                     will be pie. Sometimes it means there will be trouble.

    FX 9:            KNEES CRACK; BOOTS SCRAPE AS FRED CROUCHES.

19  FRED VAUGHAN:    (low, urgent) Freddie. Listen to me now. With both ears.
                     Your mother’s going to be back soon. Let’s work in harness,
                     you and I. You know how your mother is about the cars.
                     You know how she is about… about spending our lucre, and
                     winter travel, and me going off.

20  FREDDIE:         (quietly) I know.

Handing It Over: Getting the Rehearsal Script Ready

When you deliver the final script for the reading, keep everything consistent:

• Freeze the numbers.

  Once the director has the script, don’t renumber the lines or sound cues, even if you make changes. Everyone at the table needs “line 19” to mean the same thing.

• Print on one side of heavy paper.

  Use 24-pound paper or heavier, printed on one side only, so the pages don’t show through and don’t rustle when turned.

• Put a cast list on the title page.

  Show who plays which parts, who reads the narration or stage directions, and who helps with the sound effects.