Reader's Theatre for Middle School

[craig238]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 3:18pm

I have 11 girls and 6 boys, grades 7 & 8 that I would like to do a Reader's Theatre (i.e staged reading) with. I would like the show to be about an hour long and would like to do something comedic rather than dramatic. Our school has given me NO (0) budget so I cannot afford 17 scripts plus... Any suggestions would be GREATLY APPRECIATED !!

[kchenofan]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 4:57pm

When I did reader's theatre in 7th grade, the teacher split us into groups, assigned each group a novel, and each group was in charge of writing their own sketch summarizing the book. Everyone was responsible for making their own props. I imagine you can do this with the whole class reading a novel and putting input into a script. I'm assuming this is a lit. class we're talking about, so this activity would exercise the students' writing as well as reading. There's also the obvious option of reading a play. In some classes I've taken, we were responsible for getting our own book.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 4:58pm

Any show that is in the public domain is about the only thing at your disposal. But as soon as you do any sort of published cutting (to make your hour) THOSE editors are entitled to their $

Nearly all productions require the purchase of not only the rights and royalties but also enough scripts for the cast. If you are performing for an audience you are expected to pay for it.

That being said: there might be some online scripts available for free.

Or try writing your own piece.

[Calvin]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 5:07pm

That's what I was going to suggest -- write up a quick adaptation of a public domain story that's good for that age group. (Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, etc.)

[jasonf]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 9:58pm

With my 7th and 8th graders I've done TONS of theater stuff. I've written stuff that I've had them do. I've also had them write their own scripts - original stories and adaptations. I've done stuff just for class and stuff that I've done for charity benefits and competitions.

If you need any advice, I'm happy to help. (I more than feel your 0 budget pain!)

Is this for a production? For a club? For a class?

[peerrjb]

Posted: 11/10/10 at 10:17pm

Having been working with this age group (and younger) for a LOT of years, I can agree that you'll need to pay for production. However, as anybody who has ever been in any kind of acting school would know, if "scene work in class" had to be paid for on a per-scene use, there wouldn't BE any scene work. If this IS to be a production, then yeah, you've got a "situation"...one NOT involving abs.

Most of the public domain "classic" stories are kind of beyond dull for this age group. One fun piece I did awhile back was to take some old chestnut classic, and begin the piece as if it really WAS what was going to be done....but during the show itself, the narrators and characters decided to update the story.... Hence, the actual in-class rehearsal and writing process BECAME what the show was. We started with
The Scottish Play, and had sequences where performers played young actors "auditioning", who then rebelled because it sounded "old-fashioned", and then bit-by-bit "updated" the language, the locales, the situations....And of course, the play itself is so bloody and nasty, it can't really miss!! One funny sequence was when three different characters spoke three different colloquial languages in the same scene.... By the end, the "actors" realized that perhaps Shakespeare's words COULD be hip, cool, and contemporary.... Thus, the learning process informed both the students and the audience to look deeper at what "appears to be old", and so on.

This concept would work for pretty much any "older" [read: public domain] piece. And check the dates out...a lot of things you don't realize ARE p.d. might just BE.
Good luck to ya.