Cheat Out Diagram for Theater Directors
I drew this once upon a time to help some young actors staging a Shakespeare play. I wish I'd had it a few years ago when staging Pedro Calderon's Life Is a Dream. I kept saying, "You need to cheat out," but no one knew what I meant. Since then, I've found my old diagram! Of course, just as with poetry, it is okay to break the rules--NOT cheat out--for some chosen, dramatic reason which better conveys what the scene is trying to do. But as a rule . . .