Theater Play Teacher Resources

Yes, Virginia, there really is a reader's theater script for "The Night Before Christmas." The exercise is a great way to productively channel pre-holiday energy.

The ninth video in the Crash Course Theatre series focuses on how two women brought theater back into the Christian world. Canoness Hrotsvitha, the first female playwright and Hildegard of Bingen, a nun who composed liturgical dramas,...

Take your class to the theater! First graders will examine characters that actors play such a villians and heroes. Then participate in creating plays and performing in them. They will also research what it takes to create scenery, props...

What better way to tell a story than with actors dressed like horses? Information about satyr plays and other aspects of Greek comedy makes up the fourth video in the Crash Course Theater series. The discussion includes references to...

Match the lyrics of songs found in Shakespeare's plays to the work they came from. Bonus: sing the songs! You do get to choose from four titles in this multiple-choice quiz, and no, you do not have to sing the songs if you don't want to....

In this reading worksheet, students participate in a 2 character reader's theater play based on the book If You Take a Mouse to School.

Students utilize a Reader's Theater script and accompanying lesson plan to learn about the Iditarod race that takes place in Alaska. During the process, they also learn about teamwork and working together.

Hopefully, learners do not sleep during a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet. A helpful study guide introduces theater goers to the popular Shakespearean tragedy and includes activities to accompany a production of the play. Activities...

It's the end of the sixteenth century in the middle of the Spanish Inquisition when a group of prisoners decides to dramatize the story of Don Quixote. A study guide provides a summary and other important information about the play Man...

Lights, camera, action. Scholars use page 33 of The Most Beautiful Roof in the World to create a readers theater. They work in triads and use sticky notes to mark and create their own speaking parts from sections of the text. They then...

Sometimes life feels like a tragic comedy. A video about the play Waiting for Godot describes the play as a tragic comedy. Viewers see a summary of the famous drama and its history before answering multiple-choice and open-ended...

Engage and entertain young learners with this collection of readers theatre activities. With over 25 different scripts, a wide range of topics are covered from simple counting and rhyming exercises to adaptions of popular children's...

The students listen to the story "The Cinder-Eyed Cats." The students then chose individual parts to play in a theater like production. The students move like their character, be it a fish, an octopus, a lobster, a cat, etc. Water music...

No instructional activity accompanies this drama about the American Revolution. With 13 speaking roles, the short script could be used for a class production, a instructional activity on the parts of a play, or to supplement your social...

Conduct a Reader's Theater. Third, fourth, and fifth graders rewrite books with a baseball theme to a Reader's Theater format. They form groups of four or five, practice reading the script, and then perform it for an audience.

Set this slideshow up at as an independent work station, or to provide your theater arts class with a look at the many manifestations of modern literary drama. Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller are the focus of the...

Here is a series of five exercises intended to bring movement, dance, and theater into the classroom. Intended for special ed classes, but appropriate for any grade, learners will pantomime, play pretend, dance, move, and create...

Build reading fluency and classroom community with a Reader’s Theater activity. Class groups select a myth, or if part of a myth writing unit, select a group member’s myth, craft a script, and perform for the class. Directions for...

Fifth graders view the play, The Ant and the Grasshopper. They define Aristotle's six elements of a play. At the end of the lesson, 5th graders be asked to participate in the play by acting like busy ants. This lesson would tie in nicely...

Introduce young thespians to all aspects of the theater. A syllabus for a one-semester drama course provides lessons that take learners from the history of drama to the many facets of play production.

Readers match the name of a female character from a Shakespearean play to the correct play that woman is in. Strong, mostly central female characters are covered.

Until the reign of Louis XIII, French society did not view acting as an honorable profession. A video describes French theater during the time of popular playwright Moliere. Viewers enjoy an excerpt of the play Tartuffe and learn the...

Who would've guessed that a boy from the sleepy town Stratford-upon-Avon would grow up to become one of the greatest playwrights of all time? Scholars only know a few details about Shakespeare's early life, but that information is the...

Fight or flight? Could a play be so scary that it makes the audience want to run from the theater? Andre de Lorde actually had the dream of writing such a play. Scholars learn of him and other French playwrights that focused on the...