Enrichment · Arts & Creativity

Block the scene
before rehearsal.

Set up the stage, place the cast, and move them cue by cue. The page writes the blocking shorthand for every move, flags hidden actors and collisions, and prints a sheet with a ground plan for each beat.

Open the workspaceWhat you get

The workspace

The page opens on a scene written for it, at beat 4, where one actor is hidden behind another. Drag either of them a step to the side and the flag clears.

Loading the workspace. If nothing appears, turn on JavaScript.

What you get

Enrichment · Arts & CreativityFree

What you finish with
A blocking plan for a scene: where every actor stands on each cue, the moves between cues in stage shorthand and in plain words, flags for crowding, blocked sightlines and collisions, and a printed blocking sheet with a small ground plan for every beat.
Who it is for
Student directors and stage managers; drama clubs and theater classes in middle school, high school and college; community theater volunteers; teachers who want to show stage directions on a screen.
Format
Browser tool with four parts: a ground plan you block on beat by beat, the cast and set list, a blocking sheet for everyone or one actor, and saved scenes. Prints the sheet with a plan for each beat; copies it as text; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv) and a file you can import on another device.
Access
Free. No account or sign-in. It runs in your web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. Everything you type stays in this browser and is saved there as you go; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Arts & Creativity space in Caveat Enrichment.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Step through the worked example with Next or Play, then choose Start my own.
  2. On Cast and set, enter the stage’s width and depth, add the characters, and list the furniture. Turn on Arrange the set to place each piece.
  3. On Block, type the cue for the first beat and drag each actor to a starting place. Actors in the wings are offstage.
  4. Add a beat for each move. Everyone starts where they were; move whoever moves, and add what they do. Read the flags before going on.
  5. Open Blocking sheet to print the scene for the prompt book, or choose one actor to print just that actor’s moves.

Open the workspace

How stage blocking is written down

Stage directions, the shorthand, and what this page checks for you.

Reading the plan

A ground plan is the stage seen from above. This page draws it the way a stage manager’s script does, with the audience at the bottom. The acting space is divided into nine areas, three across and three deep, or fifteen on a wide stage. An actor’s position is named by its area: down left, up center, right center.

The shorthand

Blocking is the planned movement of the actors. It is written beside the line it happens on, in pencil, because it changes in rehearsal. A cross, written X, is a move from one place to another: RO X DC means Rosa crosses to down center. ENT and EXIT mark an entrance and an exit. Each actor gets a short code. Companies differ on the details, so a key of abbreviations goes at the front of the script. The page writes every move both ways, in shorthand and in plain words.

What the page checks

Four things, on every beat. Same spot: two actors less than a foot and a half apart. Hidden: seen from three seats 20 feet back from the stage (one on the center line, one in line with each side of the stage), another actor stands between the seat and this one, within a foot of the line of sight. Paths cross: the straight lines two actors walk on the same cue meet. Through a set piece: a straight walk passes through furniture that the actor neither starts nor ends on. These are rules of thumb chosen for this page, and they are prompts for the director’s eye. Real sightlines depend on the house: how wide it is, how steeply it rises, whether there is a balcony.

What the plan leaves out

The plan is flat. It does not know who is sitting, kneeling or standing on a platform, which way anyone is facing, or how long a cross takes, and it draws every move as a straight line. It assumes the audience sits on one side, as in a proscenium or end stage; a thrust stage or theater in the round needs its sightlines checked from more directions.

How it is checked

Positions are kept in whole half feet, so every test is exact arithmetic. Before each release the page’s rules are run against the same rules written a second time, on 10,000 random stages, casts and moves, and have to agree on every area, every line of shorthand and every flag.

UPSTAGE: away from the audienceURup rightUCup centerULup leftRrightCcenterLleftDRdown rightDCdown centerDLdown leftDOWNSTAGE: toward the audiencethe actor’s rightstage rightthe actor’s leftstage leftAUDIENCEhouse lefthouse right
Whose left and right. Stage directions are given from the actor’s side, facing the audience, so stage right is on the audience’s left. Upstage is away from the audience and downstage is toward it; the words come from raked stages, which sloped up toward the back. House left and house right are the audience’s own left and right.

Sources

  1. Dean, A., & Carra, L. (2009). Fundamentals of Play Directing (5th ed.). Waveland Press. Composition and movement: the areas of the stage, the actor’s position in relation to the audience, and how one actor covers another.
  2. Stern, L., & Gold, J. (2016). Stage Management (11th ed.). Routledge. The promptbook and rehearsal procedures: stage diagrams, and recording the blocking beside the script with a key of abbreviations.

The example scene, its lines and its characters were written for this page. The flags are prompts, not rules, and the plan is not a safety check: stairs, platforms, moving scenery and stage combat are worked out in rehearsal by the people responsible for them. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.