hello, i must be going

Entrances and exits are storytelling tools, not traffic patterns.  Treated well, they create meaning before and after a character speaks.

Entrances

An entrance is a claim on the room.

Ask:

• What changes because this person arrives?

• Are they early, late, unexpected or unwanted?

• Do they interrupt, observe or pretend not to listen?

Strong choices:

• Entering at the worst possible moment

• Entering quietly when loudness is expected

• Entering already in motion or mid-argument

• Entering with knowledge others don’t yet know

Delay dialogue if possible.  Let the room react first.

Exits

An exit is a decision — or a failure to decide.

Ask:

• Are they leaving on purpose or being forced out?

• What are they avoiding by exiting?

• What do they leave unfinished?

Powerful exits:

• Leaving before the scene’s emotional peak

• Staying when an exit is clearly expected

• Being the last one left with the consequences

• Exiting with a line that recontextualizes the scene

Negative space

What matters isn’t just who enters or exits — but who doesn’t.  An absence can feel louder than a speech.

Practical rule

If an entrance or exit could happen at any other moment with no change, it’s probably weak. Tie it to revelation, rupture or reversal.

Here are widely taught examples of great entrances and exits — each one doing dramatic work, not just moving bodies around.

Entrances

The Ghost — Hamlet

The Ghost’s entrance isn’t explanatory; it’s ontological.  Before it speaks, the play asks: Is reality stable?  Its repeated re-entrances recalibrate the rules of the world each time.

Why it works: The entrance is the inciting incident.

Stanley Kowalski — A Streetcar Named Desire

Stanley enters carrying meat. Not metaphorically.  Literally.

Why it works: The object announces power, appetite, and physicality before Stanley opens his mouth.  Blanche never recovers from this entrance.

Martha — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Martha bursts in loud, drunk, dominant.

Why it works: The entrance establishes the tone contract of the play.  Anyone expecting realism instead of ritualized combat is immediately disabused.

Godot — Waiting for Godot

Godot never enters.

Why it works: The most powerful entrance in modern drama is an absence that organizes the entire play.

Exits

Nora — A Doll’s House

The door slam.

Why it works: It’s not an exit from a room; it’s an exit from a worldview.  The sound replaces dialogue.  Theater history pivots on a noise.

Hedda — Hedda Gabler

Hedda exits to another room.  A gunshot.

Why it works: The play denies us the spectacle.  What matters isn’t how she dies, but that no one stopped her — and no one truly knew her.

Lear — King Lear

Lear’s final entrance carrying Cordelia’s body.

Why it works: It reverses every earlier power dynamic.  The king enters as a broken father, too late for language to save him.

A Pattern to Notice

Great entrances and exits:

• Change the rules of the scene

• Carry information without explanation

• Arrive too early, too late, or never

• Cost the character something

For examples of memorable entrances and exits, see the sample preview of my play, One Damn Thing.