[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

A tiny little life moment that I observed just now at the gas station/convenience store. A woman and her son were leaving the store. He looked about six or seven years old. I heard him ask his mother,"Does Dad work at Home Depot?" His mom rolled her eyes and answered "Yeah," with a disinterested tone bordering on contempt. But the little boys eyes got wider, and a smile blossomed on his face as he said, Oh" in an impressed whisper.

So, an itty-bitty slice of dialogue, but the playwright in me loved this moment for its economy of storytelling. Mom was expecting and hoping for so much more from the off-stage Dad, but he has climbed in esteem to his son almost as much as if Mom had told him that he's actually Iron Man.

Now, this richly loaded moment, scripted out verbatim, looks like this:

SON: Does Dad work at Home Depot?

MOM: Yeah.

SON: Oh.

And yet, I've read that its wrong and bad for playwrights to instruct emotional cues in a script. It's up to the actors and director to find those beats on their own. But really, who would know to look for them in such a mundane verbal exchange. So, is it really wrong to script a scene thusly:

SON: Does Dad work at Home Depot?

Mom: (Dully, rolling eyes) Yeah.

SON: (Awed, beaming) Oh.

From what you are saying, it sounds like this is not the opening of the drama but somewhere more in the middle. If from prior scenes we know of the mom's exasperation, and the boys infatuation then I'd say no. You would not need to spell it out. It should be as you say left for them to find. However I'm not sure how well that rule would apply to children actors. They may need more prompting.