Not Too Late for Holiday Plays

I was recently contacted by a theater company in Maryland which wants to add my adaption of “The Gift of the Magi” to its annual Victorian Christmas Collection. They wanted to know how much I charge for performance rights. Normally, when you perform a play from publishing companies, you’re required to pay a substantial licensing fee. The Samuel French Company, for example, owns the rights to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. If you want your students to perform it for the annual PTO bazaar, it’ll set you back $100 or 10% of the gate receipts, whichever is greater—and that’s often in addition to buying the scripts themselves (which run $8 or $9 each).

I craft my plays so that teachers can use them to build strong readers, self-confident speakers, and engaged learners. I don’t charge schools to perform my plays. Your three bucks gives you license to photocopy as many scripts as you need for your class AND the rights to perform the play in your school. Three bucks sounds like a pretty good deal compared to traditional publishers.

I’m pleased the Gift of the Magi is getting some love in Maryland, but I’m even happier that my holiday plays are finding their way into classrooms all over the country. It isn’t too late to work in a reading or even quick performance of one of my Halloween plays into yours. The Birth-mark, which is based on the short story masterpiece by Hawthorne, is a good place to start. Says one purchaser of The Birth-mark:

“My students love Reader’s Theater. They loved reading this. They said that they were able to express the ‘darker side of themselves.’”

Also consider The Monkey’s Paw, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the Tell-Tale Heart. The Monkey’s Paw originally appeared in Scholastic’s Scope magazine, while the latter two are available in my book, Read Aloud Plays: Classic Short Stories (Scholastic). You can purchase it as an e-book and have it ready for your students right away.

If you enjoy Poe, consider pairing Tell-Tale Heart with my modernized version: Penelope Ann Poe’s Amazing Cell Phone. It retells the story in a unique way. Says one user:

“My 8th grade students LOVED this assignment. I let them use their cell phones and make the ring tone noises while reading. It kept them engaged and we read it three different times during the class so they could read different parts. Highly recommend.”

Finally, I have a handful of engaging Christmas plays, too. Gabriel Grub–from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers—is my newest script, and it’s as eerie as any Halloween tale. I also have two versions of A Christmas Carol. For a limited time, you can download my traditional version from TpT–or you can re-imagine Scrooge as a woman by using my Classic Short Stories version (which also includes Magi, by the way).

Happy Directing!

Advertisements

What’s Your Fatal Flaw?

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic short story, The Birth-mark, the main character becomes obsessed with his beautiful wife’s one and only imperfection and ends up killing her in his attempt to remove it.

It’s a story about love, science, and perfection. It includes a mad scientist, a beautiful maiden, a bloody heart, an Igor-like lab assistant, secret potions, and fatal flaws. Kids love to enact it, and because it includes numerous literary devices that make for engaging discussions or fluid written responses, it’s a great way to teach to the Common Core.

Aylmer (the mad scientist), appears to be the main character, but is he really the protagonist or the antagonist? Both Aylmer and his beautiful wife (the victim) are dynamic characters. They both change significantly. How?  What does Aylmer’s nightmare, in which he removes Georgiana’s heart, foreshadow?  The play includes a character, James, who doesn’t appear in the original story. Why is he included and how does it impact point of view? Toss in the elements of setting, mood, imagery, and irony, and you have a made-to-order Common-Core-meeting reading activity.

I’ve been told by some that they just don’t have time to work “skits” or “drama” into their classroom; adherence to core reading, writing, and math leaves no room for fun stuff like Read Aloud Plays. But I protest! Drama is core reading. Read Aloud Plays, including such classics as The Birth-mark, The Monkey’s Paw, A Retrieved Reformation, and many others on my site, are a perfect way to teach to the CCSs. And now it’s even easier. Click here to download a FREE activity sheet. It addresses Literature: Key Ideas and Details, and can be used with any of my Read Aloud Plays from the classic short stories series.

Happy Directing!

Act-Aloud Plays

“Johnny” has a big personality. Though it sometimes gets him in trouble, it translates well to the stage. While playing Polythemus in my play, Cyclops: The Monster in the Cave, he takes a swig of an imaginary potion, vomits, staggers pathetically, and then falls to the ground. It mesmerizes the crowd.  The play’s a hit.

But there’s more behind the play’s success than just Johnny’s big personality. Because I’m both a teacher and a playwright, I write my plays while imagining my students acting them out. As a result, they’re not just read-aloud plays, they’re act-aloud plays.  Like many of you, I’ve run across plays that are clogged with excessive narration (“too much exposition,” as the say on Broadway) or made confusing by multiple settings within the same scene.  Know that I endeavor to create plays that avoid these traits.  While narration is necessary given the format prescribed by my publishers, I try to keep it to a minimum, or I find creative ways to deliver it. For example, the character of James in The Birthmark is simultaneously telling his story to the audience while talking to the other characters in the play. The Snakecharmers in Rikki Tikki Tavi, are designed to be mystical figures (I imagine them with flute in hand). And Adult Tyree from Freedom for the First Time retains all the local color (and southern dialect) of her childhood counterpart, the central figure of the story.   Another reason my plays are created with the stage in mind is because I believe that the repetition of practicing for an actual performance is what builds reading fluency and drives student buy-in. Kids love performing, and they’ll read and re-read their scripts over and over again if it leads up to a performance. Try asking a kid to read a story out of the Houghton-Mifflin text thirty times. See where that gets you.

Using read aloud plays simply as good reading material is just fine, but their greatest value, especially for kids like Johnny, is as act-aloud plays. And speaking of fund plays to act out, I’ve just posted three new ones. All three were published in Scholastic’s Scope magazine last school year.

The Birthmark is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic short story about imperfection. It pits science against nature and includes a wonderful “mad scientist” scene, complete with an Igor-esque lab assistant.  Cyclops, from Homer’s Odyssey,  will excite all your students who’ve gotten into the Percy Jackson books.  It mixes the original Greek mythology with some kid-friendly humor that will have your students giggling. Mine sure did.  Finally, The Secret Soldier tells the true story of Deborah Samson, who disguised herself as a man and joined Washington’s Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. It’ll be a great addition to your Early American unit. Help your “Johnny” find success with act-aloud plays. Visit readaloudplays.com or my store at TeachersPayTeachers to preview or purchase dozens of compelling plays.

Happy directing!