#stage directions explained

When I was first starting out in theatre, I had a lot of trouble with stage directions. What perspective are the from? Why? What the heck in general??? Let me explain the directions:

This is a simple diagram of stage directions and what you’ll be hearing most of the time. Downstage is closer to the audience, upstage is further away. Stage left and right are from the actor’s perspective, not the audience’s. For example, if your director tells you to go stage right, go to YOUR right. The abbreviations may also be said. They’re pretty simple and go hand in hand with the names. These stage directions are what you will here the vast majority of the time

Why are the directions like this? A long time ago, theaters were built at a slant and the audience was flat. Going upstage literally meant going up and vice versa because you were acting on an inclined platform. Though the audience is slanted and the stage is flat today, we can still see remnants of how it was 100s of years ago in the stage directions.

There is a very small chance that your director will use anything other than these terms, but here is a more complicated diagram:

As you can see, down stage is always the closer side towards the audience and stage left and right are always from the actor’s perspective.

If you do a whole lot of dance you might hear some other types of stage directions. Used in ballet, directions including corners and walls may be used. The directions go like this:

The directions include corner 1, 2, 3, 4 and wall 5, 6, 7, 8. Wall 5 is always the audience. Unlike stage directions, the corners and walls method is used to tell which way a dancer should face. If you’re told to face wall 6, for example, you’d be facing the left. This has nothing to do with where you are on stage, though. You can be facing wall 6 and be at stage right at the same time.