Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud

A script is more than just the lines of dialogue and the names of the characters. It also contains numerous on-stage cues which the actor must follow in order to progress the scene. These are part of the scene, but they are indications for the actor to, insert italics, do something. Experienced actors know how to navigate a script and can easily sift the text from the metatext. Inexperienced actors, however... That struck a nerve, do not finish that sentence. New paragraph.

This trope comes into play when a character unfamiliar with script format is unaware that not everything on the page is part of the spoken text. He may well start, Wiki Word, Reading The Stage Directions Out Loud. New... oh.


 * In eighth grade, we did a staged version of TheTamingOfTheShrew. Some of us were natural actors, others...weren't. The actor who played Lucretio's father always said aloud "Runs after Lucretio". EVEN ON THE NIGHT. He also forgot all of his actual lines and I had to ad lib for him to get the hell off of stage.


 * During a practical session in drama class at school, one of my classmates said "delves into his pocket" out loud during a rehearsal, while performing the associated action. This was also common when we were reading out plays in English Literature class, particularly in our reading of DeathOfASalesman, in which we actually had a separate person whose ROLE was to read the stage directions.
 * We do that here, too - we're reading DeathOfASalesman, and we've got someone separate to read out the stage directions.


 * This troper started by printing out a set of public domain Christmas songs for his family gathering one year, and ended up wondering why his (predominantly ESL) aunts and uncles kept chanting "Refrain" at the end of each verse.


 * A trainer at this troper's workplace actually mentioned someone that would read the dead-air script (the one that you're supposed to read when there's nobody on the line) verbatim: Caller, I am unable to hear you, if you can hear me, please call back at (number of company) or dial (number) to speak with a live agent, pause for five seconds....


 * Too much time on the internet can do this to you.]] This troper occasionally says "!" (sarcastically) or "Facepalm".
 * Similarly to how people will say "LOL" or "OMG" instead of... laughing or saying "oh my god."
 * This troper says "smack" when members of his family say something worthy of a DopeSlap but he's too lazy to get up and deliver one himself.
 * This troper had a friend (well, we're still Facebook friends, but we never see each other anymore) who would actually say "Bee-Arr-Bee" when going after (f'ex) utensils or condiments. This troper wishes he had known about the "smack" idea at the time.


 * A notable example: this troper's high school drama instructor would sometimes pronounce stage directions and punctuation while demonstrating how a line should be read. During a certain production, this led to him shouting, "'I've finally freed the words that were lodged in the dark colon!"


 * BattleHamster: This troper was in a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet, and one of the people said "aside" out loud.


 * This troper once directed a production of Hamlet which included (in rehearsal) our rather inexperienced Gertrude lamenting "Sweets to the sweet, farewell, scattering flowers."


 * UncleTyki: This troper's drama teacher actually enforced this. In our current play several of the stage directions give extra details about the characters and scenes that the audience needs to know to actually understand what's going on.


 * In this troper's (john_e) English class, we were reading a play in which the fire brigade repeatedly recite a rhyme which they seem to think of as their BadassCreed. On the third repetition, the verse is written just as "We are the noble Fire Brigade etc.". So that was what we said. In our defence, TrueArtIsIncomprehensible based on what had happened in the play so far it didn't seem too unlikely that the firemen would do that.


 * My friend and I were spoofing the script we'd used for a children's play at our school, and I accidentally read aloud, "Aladdin appears, loud music...plays..." I started cracking up and my friend said, "Way to read the stage directions!"


 * This happened recently in a play this troper attended. It made no sense because the director was reading out the stage directions...while the actors performed them.


 * this Troper was cast as 'script reader' in a play- the narrator. The 'stage directions', to be fair, were more like descriptions one would find in a novel, and by the end of the play the fourth wall has been shattered quite beyond repair. so as the whole play is going on, you've got a girl in the balcony dressed like mrs. Darling goes to the opera, talking about how someone is driving and the city is really pretty....it was rather awesome though.


 * this troper belongs to a 'play readers' club, and one of the parts is stage direction. kinda needed, as we don't act out the play.


 * One of This Troper's favorite comics strips when he was little was Peanuts. (Actually, it still is.) But though he realized Charlie Brown ended up distressed and depressed at the end of a lot of those strips, he didn't realize that *SIGH* was a sound effect rather than a spoken word. So This Troper tended to say "sigh" when feeling down, see?


 * Always happens in this troper's english classes when we read plays. This annoys her to no end.
 * This troper is the kid who RuleOfFunny read those out loud ForTheEvulz because BerserkButton it made people angry.


 * At this troper's school, the school song includes the direction "Breathe" in the chorus. Apparently fifty odd years ago, some music teacher would yell this when teaching the song, and it has been tradition ever since to bellow the word as loudly as possible during every rendition. To the extent where "Breathe" is the loudest part of the whole song, and the part that makes any student feel most proud.


 * This Troper's French class does this so often the teacher says he'd shoot us for ruining French literature, if we weren't so freaking hilarious. He once referred to us as "a glorious trainwreck" and has been seriously considering filming us and putting it on YouTube. This brings us full circle to BadBadActing, where we run with this, ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud, LargeHam and DullSurprise. We had to stop reading one poem about painting the perfect bird because he was on the floor laughing.