Whats the best way to get started with a play?
Read it aloud to your students. Many of your kids have probably never seen a play. They may not even know what a play is; their primary experiences with storytelling come from movies and TV. Students often make videos as special projects in school; they almost never put together a play. It’s easy to see why – they’ve all seen information and storytelling on a television screen, but few of them can conceive just how exciting real humans talking in front of an audience can be. And they may be more comfortable in front of a camera than a live audience. We think your best bet is to model the acting. If the kids are following along with their written scripts, they’ll have a huge head-start on fluently acting the play. “Acting” is the key word. Kids mostly don’t realize that they can use silly voices and gestures, and they can vary their timing to make the jokes work. (Mr. Bad Wolf LOVES it when the jokes work!) But you, the teacher, can show them all of this. So don’t just read the play to
