“Help! My Actors Are Just Standing There!” — A Practical, Passionate Guide to Blocking

by Chris Peterson

Let’s just say it. A scene where everyone stands around talking can lose an audience fast.

We’ve all seen it happen. The energy starts to drain. The stakes get flatter. People start shifting in their seats, and it is not always because the writing is bad. Sometimes the scene just has no life in the room.

And when that happens, the answer usually is not to make everyone move just so the stage looks busier. Blocking is not traffic control. It is not just making sure no one bumps into the couch or stands in front of someone for five pages. The movement has to come from what is happening between the people in the scene.

If you’re a director staring at a scene and thinking, “Why does this feel impossible?” that’s normal. It does not mean you do not know what you’re doing. It usually means the scene has not shown itself to you yet.

Before you tell anyone where to stand, figure out what is actually happening. Who wants something? Who is trying not to show it? Who has the power right now? Who is losing it?

If you can’t answer that, clever staging is not going to help much.

The movement should come from the pressure of the scene. Someone moves closer because they need something. Someone steps away because they cannot handle what is being said. Those choices tell us more than having people cross the stage because the room feels too still.

And honestly, let the actors show you some of it first.

Get the scene on its feet and see what happens. Read it. Walk it. Let them follow their instincts for a bit. Sometimes an actor will turn away at exactly the right moment without even realizing why. Sometimes they will move toward someone because the scene is pulling them there.

A lot of good blocking starts with noticing something honest and saying, “Keep that.”

That does not mean the actors block the whole scene for you. You still have to shape it. You still have to make choices. But your job is not to control every step from the first minute. Your job is to see what feels true and build from there.

The main thing is that movement has to matter.

If someone crosses the stage, something should have changed. If someone sits down, it should tell us something. If someone moves away, we should feel why.

Movement just for the sake of movement usually looks like exactly that. Busy. Nervous. Like the director was afraid the scene would get boring, so now everyone is walking around for no real reason.

The audience can tell.

Use the space, but do not overcomplicate it. Distance matters. So does stillness. Sometimes the strongest choice is letting someone stay exactly where they are while everything around them changes.

That can tell us a lot.

And yes, staging rules exist. Sightlines matter. You do not want actors turning their backs for no reason. You do not want someone delivering an important line behind a chair where half the audience cannot see them.

But the rule is not the point. The moment is the point.

Make the choice that feels right first. Then adjust it so the audience can actually see it. That is usually the balance.

The other thing I think directors forget is that blocking has to keep making sense after the first time you set it. An actor can memorize where they are supposed to go, but if they do not understand why they are going there, it is probably going to feel mechanical.

Actors do not move because you told them to. Or at least, they should not. They move because something in the scene changed. If you keep connecting the movement back to the moment, the blocking has a much better chance of staying alive.

And please, don’t direct the whole thing from your chair.

You have to get up sometimes. Stand in the space. See what the actors are seeing. Feel how far away people are from each other. You miss things when you stay planted in one spot with your notebook the entire time.

Theatre is physical. Direction should be too.

Blocking is messy. It is trial and error. Sometimes you will try something and it will immediately feel wrong. Fine. Change it. Sometimes something accidental will happen and it will solve the whole scene. Great. Keep it.

That is part of the work.

The goal is not to make the stage look busy. The goal is to help the audience understand what is happening between people. If the movement comes from that, the scene usually starts to breathe a little easier.

And when that happens, you can feel it.