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Playwriting · Lesson 2

Acts, Scenes, and the Cast

How a full play is built on the page: cast list, act and scene headings, AT RISE, intermission, and curtain.

22 min · Watch → Read → Apply → Prove

Step 1 · Watch

Watch & reflect

Greek playwrights invented the machinery of live drama — actors in conflict, witnessed by a crowd. That is still the job of a play.

Step 2 · Read

The skeleton of a play

Format is the line. Structure is the house: who is in the play, where the act breaks, and how a scene begins.

Once you can write a beat, you need the headings that hold a whole play together. These are the same labels Roman Stage offers: Cast, Act, Scene, AT RISE, Intermission, Curtain.

Cast of characters

Near the front of a full script, list who appears. A name, and often a short identifying phrase — not a biography. Example: KEEPER, custodian of the Scriptorium. Keep it to what a program could print.

Acts and scenes

  • ACT I, ACT II — large turns of the story. Many short plays are one act.
  • Scene 1, Scene 2 — a change of place, time, or who is on stage. Center the heading. Use caps or title case consistently.
  • AT RISE — under the scene heading, the opening picture: where we are, what time, who is already on.
  • INTERMISSION — if the audience needs a break between acts.
  • CURTAIN — the end of the play (or of an act, if you mark it that way).

A skeleton you can copy

CAST OF CHARACTERS
KEEPER, tends the candles
SCHOLAR, returns with an unfinished page

ACT I
Scene 1

AT RISE: The Scriptorium. One candle left.

KEEPER
If you leave, the page stays blank.

SCHOLAR
(steps to the table)
Then I will not leave.

CURTAIN

You do not need five acts on day one. You do need a heading so a director knows where the scene starts, and a cast so the company knows who they are playing.

Step 3 · Apply

Put it into practice

A short exercise to turn what you learned into skill.

Write a mini script page: ACT I, Scene 1, AT RISE, two speakers in CAPS, and at least one direction or parenthetical.

Headings on their own lines. Then the beat you already know how to format.

Step 4 · Prove

Lesson test

Pass with 70% or higher to complete this lesson.

Further study optional