Stage Start: 20 Plays for Children (Drama Start Series Book 3)

The plays in the collection are

The Lion and the Mouse

The Little Red Hen

The Gingerbread Man

The Ants and the Grasshopper

The Enormous Turnip

Chicken Licken

The Hare and the Tortoise

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

The Ugly Duckling

The Boy who cried Wolf

Chinese New Year

The Lonely Dragon

How the Zebra got his Stripes

The Selfish Giant

The Land of Trolls and Gargoyles

No Excuse

Caught in the Act

Anne of Green Gables

At Doctor Crowne's

A Winter’s Night

Each play is between five minutes and twenty minutes long. The plays can be adapted to suit the various needs of the class/group. The first eight plays use a lot of repetition so it is very easy for young children to learn their lines. The cast list is flexible – more characters can be added and existing characters can be changed or omitted. Most of the characters can be on stage throughout the play, with children walking to the centre of the stage when it is time to say their lines. In the initial plays the teacher/leader can assume the role of the storyteller if the children can’t read or are not at the reading level required.

The costumes for all the plays are or can be very simple. For example, the children can just wear something in the colour of their animal, wear a mask or use some face paint. A word of advice: if the children wear masks, make sure they don’t cover their mouths as it would make it difficult to hear them speak. The rest of the plays also have a flexible cast list as more characters can be added and existing characters can be added or omitted easily depending on the requirement of the group. All suggestions for stage directions are included in brackets and italics.