Producing the School Play Ebook

Producing the School Play

• How to Write a Play: a step-by-step process by which teachers and their students -- at any grade level -- can write a well-crafted script, which is both entertaining and meaningful. Theme, plot, character and setting are all thoroughly examined. Examples of synopses, scenarios and scripts are provided for easy reference and a 10-day playwrighting curriculum is included.

• Characterization -- for both the student playwright and the student actor is shown to be the key to effective dramatization and a wide variety of character exercises are provided to assure individualistic and compelling characters for any play.

• Oral Interpretation: Reading Aloud with Meaning -- All four components of literacy (reading, writing, speaking and listening) are addressed when students create their own scripts and then read them aloud to an audience.

• Characters, stories -- even the words themselves -- come alive when the principles of proper emphasis, phrasing and vocal variety are used. Techniques used by professional actors are made simple enough to be used by any student.

• How to Involve Students Who Don't Want to Perform: Research, design, construction, scriptwriting, design, production crews and stage management are among the exciting and crucial tasks of those who work backstage. Each is educationally viable and can be vitally important to the success of any production.

• The Application of the Multiple Intelligences Theory to Playmaking and Arts-in-Education: The experience of theatre involves all the Intelligences simultaneously. This section breaks down the individual theatre tasks according to their appropriateness for each Intelligence.

• Costume Design, Masks and Stage Make-up can all be learned easily by students of any age and can be as exciting and as educationally viable for them as can writing, directing or acting. Color, silhouette, fabric, trim, accessories and historical authenticity for period plays are all explained-with activities for the classroom -- as well as the various kinds of masks and how to make them, and the uses of theatrical make-up.

• The Elements of Scene Design and Stage Lighting: Research, design, floor plans, working drawings, sketches, renderings and set models are addressed, with guidelines for young designers, and the designing of stage properties and the most effective use of theatrical lighting instruments are discussed.

• The Rehearsal Process includes how to teach students basic stage conventions, how and why to block stage movement, the details of character business and stage business, how to make a prompt script, scheduling tech and dress rehearsals, performance etiquette and how to effectively bring closure onto the production process.

• The last chapter, Expanding Your Horizons, shows how you can use your school and your community as a virtually endless resource of people and things to make every production you do -- whether in the classroom, for an assembly or as a community event an unqualified success for everyone involved.

• Bibliography, Resource Lists, Glossary and Index and much, much more.

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