The blueprint for a night
Before actors ever speak, a script lays out acts, scenes, and stage directions — the blueprint of the whole evening. Learning a play's anatomy is learning to read that plan the way an architect reads a house drawing.
Acts, scenes, and cues
A play is divided into acts (the biggest sections) and scenes (smaller units within an act). The script contains dialogue (the lines characters speak) and stage directions (instructions, usually in italics, for actions and settings).
ACT 1, SCENE 2 (A dark forest. THUNDER.) MACBETH. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Lab · Dialogue or direction?
- Look at a line in a script that a character says aloud.
- Look at the italic note describing thunder or movement.
- Label which is dialogue and which is a stage direction.
What you should see: Spoken lines are dialogue; the italic instructions (like '(THUNDER)') are stage directions.