Musical theater is a trifecta, requiring cast members to be actors, singers, and dancers. Help theater arts students develop these skills with a unit designed to prepare them for a staging of a musical.

Singing, emotion, and music are explored by the class as they think about the expressive sounds and lyrics of each song they hear. They read, play, and sing several songs taken from musical theater productions and discuss the tones,...

Aladdin, Disney's Broadway musical comedy, is a magic carpet ride. Prepare your class for a field trip to the show with a study guide that is a treasure trove of activities, cultural connections, and background information.

That old fashioned rock and roll comes alive as theatre arts students prepare to attend a live performance of the musical School of Rock. Packed with both pre- and post-production materials, the guide has it all. Rock on!

Musicals have been adapted from stage plays, novels, and movies. With The Lion King, Disney transforms its animated film into show-stopping, live-action musical theatre. The guide Disney provides to accompany a study of the award-winning...

A reading comprehension activity traces the history of musical theatre. It starts with ancient Greece choruses and continues through the ballad and comic operas of the Renaissance, the operettas of Britain, France, and Germany, the...

Explore the characteristics of four very different musical styles. Your class will consider the rhythm, pitch, voice, and timber of each style. They'll practice reading musical notation, identifying elements of music theory, while...

The 16 lessons in Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook are designed to help actors enrolled in a theatre arts class develop the skills they need to be successful in musical theatre. Check out this sample lesson to see if you...

Viewers of a short video learn about the development of the Broadway Book Musical in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Scholars explore the Golden Age of Broadway, which produced classics like Annie Get Your Gun and...

Drag queens in thigh-high shiny red leather boots! Welcome to Kinky Boots, the Tony Award-winning musical about a young man trying to save his family-owned shoe-making business. With an engaging story line and songs by Cyndi Lauper, the...

Students, utilizing video clips and Web sites, compare specific passages from original texts to moments in Broadway musicals on which they were based, analyzing similarities and differences between them. They adapt literature into a...

Introduce theatre arts students to the principles of musical theatre with a short information sheet that identifies and explains the importance of eight performance principles. 

Immerse yourself in the beautiful, twisted world of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. A detailed lesson plan provides important details about the writing, stagecraft, music, and literary elements of the famous musical, as...

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...

Young scholars write a rap or hip-hop lyric about the life of a famous Black American. They explore famous Black Americans in history and explore how the rap form compares to other forms of poetic expression.

Need a musical instructional activity for your drama or performing arts class? VH1 has put together a really neat instructional activity, in which learners use biographical information about Alicia Keys to write and perform a one-act...

Sometimes it's impossible to keep up with the Joneses. Scholars watch video 48 in the Crash Course Theater and Drama series that describes poor theater, which takes out the typical lights, costume, and sets that rich theater includes....

It isn't easy being green, especially if you are a green witch in the Land of Oz. Elphaba, the main character in the popular musical, Wicked, teaches viewers this and many other life lessons as she battles intolerance, prejudice, and...

Everything is beautiful about a digital stage kit designed for a study of Douglas McGrath's The Carol King musical, Beautiful. Of particular interest are McGrath's notes about the challenges he faced crafting the musical about King,...

A musical about society anxiety, loneliness, suicide, dysfunctional families, and the spread of posts on social media can open up deep conversations in a high school classroom. The 2017 Tony Award Best Musical, Dear Evan Hansen, takes an...

There are two distinct periods of African theater: BC (before colonialism) and AC (after colonialism). The 49th installment of the Crash Course Theater and Drama introduces viewers to African dance and theater traditions. However, they...

Welcome to America! A very entertaining video teaches pupils the history of drama and how it made its way to America. It discusses those that were not pleased with the appearance of theater in the New World and even tells the tale of a...