After reading Acts III and IV of Othello, give your class a fun, interactive, music-related activity. Begin by asking students about songs they have heard in movies or plays. Let them look up the lyrics online and ruminate about the...

Encourage class members to add expression and put themselves back in time during the Civil War with a reader's theater activity. The scripts include dialogue on what it was like for the Union and Confederate sides during this time.

Where do directors and set designers get their ideas so that the set they build creates the mood and atmosphere the director wants for a production? From the script! Introduce theater high schoolers to the script analysis techniques used...

Everyone has a role to play. Young scholars step into history by taking on the roles of soldiers—both male and female—during the Civil War using a fictionalized play of what life was like on the battlefield. Pupils also examine the roles...

Ninth graders read and analyze the William Shakespeare play "Romeo and Juliet" and compare it to the 1996 modern version of the play and the movie "West Side Story." They write an essay comparing and contrasting the three versions.

Raise the curtain to a class play that depicts the Civil War through both factual information and literary devices. The performance showcases the Battle of Antietam (Battle of Sharpsburg) and brings attention to women's roles,...

“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...

Much like an iceberg, the actors you see on stage are only a fraction of the number of people involved in a theatrical production. Introduce theatre arts students to the roles played by the behind-the-scenes- personnel with an worksheet...

Students create and perform folktale plays. For this reader's theater and Asian literature lesson, students work in groups to rewrite Asian folktales into scripts and perform the folktales for their class in a Reader's Theater. Lesson...

Ten drama lessons are the perfect addition to your language arts or theater class. With a focus on script elements, plot development, and parts of a dramatic story, the lessons guide young playwrights through the steps of telling a story...

It's no masquerade! If Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera is part of your curriculum, check out this three-page packet loaded with suggestions for before, during, and after reading activities.

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...

How important are sound effects in films? In stage plays? In radio programs? To gain an understanding of the impact of these special effects, class members watch a short video spoof of the sound in a scene from Star...

Students compare and contrast a website layout and the layout of a Greek theatre. In this Greek theatre activity, students research the Greek theatre and produce a bulleted list of five facts about the Greek theatre. Students complete a...

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

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...

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.

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...

Do figures of speech enhance a play or story? In small groups, learners locate and describe figures of speech they find while reading a reader's theater play. After making predictions, they describe how the figures of speech make 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...

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...

Satires may be designed to expose a bias to ridicule but if misunderstood can they reinforce that bias? Langston Hughes poem, “Minstrel Man” opens a discussion of racist stereotypes, the minstrel tradition, and the musical, “The...

Students take a closer look at Japanese drama. In this Japanese culture lesson, students study the attributes of Noh theater and compare it western theater. Students conduct independent research on the art form prior to acting out a Noh...

Students act out the Civil War through reader's theater. In this performing arts lesson, students research the Civil War and find costumes, props and scenery appropriate to the time period. They become characters from the Civil War time...