If you know me, you know I turned my book into a play and toured it to multiple cities.
I can help you do the same. But first, read this:
Having an idea for a stage play is one thing. Turning that idea into a script is another. If you’re anything like me, and like most playwrights, you’ve probably had the skeleton of your stage play dancing around in your head for months – even years. You might have notes written down and characters vaguely sketched out. Good for you! That’s a step in the right direction. Now, it’s time to flesh out that skeleton into a robust play that pulls in the right audience and the best of reviews.
Start by creating a list of your leading and supporting characters. Include more than just the character’s name. Include their unique quirks, their relationships to each other, and their back story. Use this as a cheat sheet to help you maintain continuity, focus, and relevance as your play takes shape with scene settings and dialogue.
Unlike a novel where you can paint pictures with words and brevity is not as much of a concern, a play requires you to bring certain aspects of your characters and story to life with your scenery. Be sure you take the stage into account when writing each scene and act. How often will you need to change the set and how many breaks in the performance will your audience find tolerable? Keep those thoughts in mind while writing.
Brevity also comes into play when writing dialogue. Your characters must rely on words and actions to engage the audience without the mental pictures words can create in a book. Write dialogue with that in mind, but don’t neglect to give your characters hearty dialogue that elicits the right emotional response from the audience, engages them in the characters back story, and keeps them on the edges of their seats from the opening act to the final curtain.
Lastly, write with clarity and brevity. As a general rule of thumb, each page of dialogue is equal to roughly a minute on stage. Do everything you can to keep your play under a hundred pages (or roughly an hour and a half). Much more than that, and you risk alienating potential theatergoers, or worse, losing the attention of the people who do attend.
Check out my Page To Stage Course and learn how to make 100K in one night. Go to: https://www.creativewritersuniversity.com/page-to-stage-sales
If this is helpful, please share!
Much Love,
Crystal