AMELIA EARHART
follows the heroine from her early attempts to make history through
to her tragic final flight. It's an entertaining and
surprisingly balanced look back on a period in history where our
country seemed obsessed with proving themselves as Americans.
This one act play is a fast-paced drama that
demands the most of your young adult performers and gives them a
great opportunity to show off their thespian talents. Every
year we hear from schools that have placed high or even won first
place in their drama competitions. Best of all, ArtReach places
no restrictions on your right to cut or edit the script to fit the
time constraints of your particular contest. Your production of AMELIA
EARHART is sure to be a high-flying success!
ArtReachs
Alice
in Wonderland
is flexible for student casts of all sizes
Why Teachers Love ArtReachs
Alice in Wonderland
ALICE
IN WONDERLAND is one of ArtReachs most popular scripts
with lots of performances happening all over the globe! This
script for kids to perform stands out because it is easy to adapt the
script to the size of your cast and the ages of the young performers.
The School
Play Version of the script works well for large groups of about
24. There are lots of small roles for young students such as
Dormouse, March Hare and the Queens Gardeners. If you
have young readers who may have trouble with memorizing lines, it is
quite all right to cast them as the Storytellers and allow them to
hold the script and read their parts on stage. Older kids who
really want to dive in will love the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter
and, of course, the Queen of Hearts. If youd like to
allow up to 5 girls to play Alice, each girls will enjoy her special
moment on stage. And dont forget, theres no reason
why Alice must be a girl. Try casting a boy by simply changing
the name to Alex!
Every Child
Has a Great Part in the Play!
Five Alices -- Everyone Has
Fun! Dramaworks Theatre Company, Budapest
The Medium
Cast Version is great for a small sized cast of about 15.
This script is essentially the same as the School Play Version but
lines have been lengthened, giving each performer more to memorize
and more business to do. Storytellers become much more
important in this version, allowing kids to really use their
imaginations as they find ways to set the stage for each scene.
Because lines are longer, we often recommend this for Middle School
students who are not as intimidated by long speeches.
Almost every role in the play may be played by
either gender. And dont forget that you may add lines,
jokes, songs and scenes! It is quite all right to make any
changes to the script to make it the perfect vehicle for your
kids special performance.
How About
Allen in Wonderland?
What if genders are
reversed? Will Alice
in Wonderland be just as exciting?
Alice
in Wonderland is such a meaningful part of our childhood
literature that stays with us long after we reach adulthood.
Often we protect our childhood memories by demanding that our first
images of a story stay purified by our first imaginings and memories.
Yet the most ingrained images that we love and
revere were at the start quite new and original, ignoring
stereotypes. Todays kids do not have the same ideas of
what a boy character and a girl character should
"want. And "wanting is the very thing
that brings a childs story to life. Aladdin
wants to be respected like a King; Cinderella
wants to be the kind of girl who would meet a prince at the
ball. Change the race, age, and gender of the protagonist
and you may find what a different story seems to be. The
new hero of our story may want nothing more than a small variation of
the original wanted object.
Alice, the girl who wanders into and tries to
understand Wonderland, may very well be a boy or a girl. The
absurdity (and thrill!) of Wonderland will be the same to a child,
regardless of gender. It is the same for drama. Your job
as casting director is simply to bring the desires of the protagonist
to life. Everything Alice wants can easily be what Allen
wants. Therefore, when you cast a play, look for the actor who
shows the most interest in the adventure. Alice or Allen, the
story will reveal itself with the greatest fun and intensity if the
actor who plays the lead part is the actor who shows the most
interested in the outcome.
Think
Outside the Wizard!
Can you imagine a world without
The Wizard of Oz?
When L. Frank Baum sat down in 1990 to write
Americans first fairy tale, he had to make the whole thing
up! Out of nowhere came his unique image of characters that are
so familiar to us now that they are part of our everyday life.
Have your students imagine that they are L.
Frank Baum sitting down to a blank piece of paper. Have them
pretend that they have never seen the movie or a play of The
Wizard of Oz. Have them draw an image of each
character that is very different from those we remember so well.
In order to get them thinking outside the box have them place these
characters in a different culture or climate. What if Dorothy
was living in China? What if the scarecrow lived in the
Arctic? What if the Wicked Witch had been born on a ranch in Texas?
Corinth Theatre Arts, MS - Tampa Creative Camp, FL
Creative scripts give kids lots of ideas!
Here the Tin Man has a most unusual take on the costume! The Wizard
of Oz! Great for Camps and Workshops!
Every now and then ArtReachs receives
photos of production that have taken a very different turn from the
designs we have seen in the books or movies. Add a dash
of creativity to your production by making it look different than any
other Wizard of Oz your audience has seen. What a great way to
get kids using the arts to look at the world with new eyes!
Taking the
Show on the Road
Why Not Perform Your ArtReach
Play for Other Schools?
Hit the road, Jack! Most ArtReach Plays
are ideal for touring to local schools! A little planning ahead
can make it easy to share your wonderful production with hundreds of kids.
Almost everyone agrees that the arts are a
vital part of a students education, but these days schools are
finding it more and more difficult to bus kids to performing arts
events. Less funding for the arts and the rising cost of
transportation mean kids miss out on field trips to the theatre.
But where theres a will theres a way! ArtReach has
always been first in providing plays that can be performed in
schools, on stages or in a large room.
All of ArtReachs touring plays have been
written for maximum imagination and minimum stuff to fill your
van. Each touring play features small casts such as
Emperors New Clothes, Sword in the Stone and Blue Horses
requiring mostly 2, 3 or 4 performers. Middle Schools and High
Schools will find ArtReachs Expanded Cast versions, such as
Amelia Earhart, Alice in Wonderland and Aladdin, are ideal for casts
of about 10-15 performers. Even the School Plays can be
performed for kids in nearby schools!
Kids Love
Theatre Take A Show to Them!
ArtReach's The
Emperor's New Clothes
Call the schools in your area, talk to the
principal, and tell them that you have a great production that you
would like to perform for their students. Tell them you even
have a great Teachers Guide that can be
used in the classroom before the performance. Then check all
your scenery and props and eliminate anything that is not necessary
and line up vehicles to carry set and cast.
About a week before the performance choose a
Tour Manager (from your cast or backstage crew) and visit the school
to checkout the performing space as well as parking options and
entrances and exits. Meet the principal and ask for any tips he
or she might have for a smooth event. Choose a cast member to
make a pre-show speech and then hold a question and answer period
after so that kids in the audience can learn more about the production.
Your cast gets to show off their brilliant
achievement one more time and lots of kids get to see theatre!
Theatre is a wonderful experience for all spread it around!
Train Your
Audience for Dragon Fun
Audience
participation gets everyone involved
ArtReachs script for The
Reluctant Dragon offers tons of audience participation!
Kids, teachers, grownups and everyone watching the performance has a
vital role to play. King Fancy Pants addresses them and even
asks for their help. Saint George is buoyed by the
audiences support and Widget is finally proclaimed a hero by,
you guessed it the audience! But you can draw your
audience in even more.
Audiences
Love Dragon Fun and Participation!
Widget & Hairytoes train their dragon!
The King orders a battle!
Have a dragon pyramid, Christmas tree or
bulletin board in the lobby. Explain in the program that each
audience member is asked to draw a dragon on the back and turn them
in at the end of the show. Or if theyd rather, they may
draw their image of a white knight like Saint George. While
cast members are meeting audience members in the lobby after the
show, have helpers put up the pictures. When all are ready for
viewing, have the Town Crier ring his bell and announce the art show!
If classes are attending make sure you have
lots of time for prepping before they see the show. Read
Kenneth Grahames classic story and then read the summary of the
script provided in the Teachers Guide.
Ask kids to discuss what elements of the story are the same and
which are different. Talk about why the author of the play made
certain decisions. Dont hesitate to talk about drama,
plays and other presentations they have seen and discuss what makes a
play different from a book.
Have young audience members dress up like
dragons for the show! If kids have a dragon costume from
Halloween have them wear it on the day of the show and tell the class
about it. Talk about dragons the kids have seen in movies and
TV shows. Do they have a favorite one theyd like to dress
like? An easy way to do this is to simply make a construction
paper headpiece or even decorate a ball cap.
Can you think of other fun dragon based
activities? Prepare your audience and they will love the show!
Directing Tips: <
Prev | 1
| 2 | 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| Next >
All
Free Resources