Plays for middle and high school age
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Play Suggestions
Forum Discription: Need help finding a show that's right for your theater? Ask here.
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3541
Printed Date: 11/25/24 at 9:17pm
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Topic: Plays for middle and high school age
Posted By: Darren
Subject: Plays for middle and high school age
Date Posted: 10/16/08 at 12:39am
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I haven't seen this come up for a while. Does anyone have any great suggestions for plays for middle and/or high school age students? I'm looking for something that may have some name recognition and can include kids anywhere from age 10 to 18. Thanks for any suggestions. ------------- Darren Farrington Theater Management and Production Consultant http://darrenfarrington.com - www.darrenfarrington.com |
Replies:
Posted By: Debflo
Date Posted: 10/16/08 at 6:00pm
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How simple of a script are you looking for? Musical or straight play? One act, or full length? More details will help us recommend some scripts. ------------- Check out The Denver Theatre Examiner! http://www.examiner.com/x-474-Denver-Theater-Examiner |
Posted By: Darren
Date Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:27pm
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Thanks. I'm open to any ideas, but most interested in non-musicals. Either one-act or full-length can work. It doesn't need to be incredibly simple to produce, but not overly involved with multiple sets or effects either. ------------- Darren Farrington Theater Management and Production Consultant http://darrenfarrington.com - www.darrenfarrington.com |
Posted By: donzolidis
Date Posted: 10/16/08 at 11:32pm
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I've written a ton of plays for youth (I'm a middle and high school theatre teacher in real life), and I've published 23 of them through playscripts. My most successful play has been The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, which has received 130+ productions in the past year, (making it something like the 2nd or 3rd most popular one-act in America this year! Yay, me.)
You can check out my stuff here, and you can read all of the plays online by clicking on read sample.
http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=426 - http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=426 ------------- www.donzolidis.com |
Posted By: Shanahan
Date Posted: 10/17/08 at 9:36am
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Don, I love the title " http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=1157 - Alice's Adventures with Poorly Cooked Cafeteria Seafood "! Brilliant! ------------- Laughter guaranteed. Plays by John Shanahan http://www.johnshanahan.net Dinner for Several One Before Forty Bob's Date Brushstroke Worst Possible Time for Writer's Block & more! |
Posted By: Debflo
Date Posted: 10/17/08 at 2:23pm
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A few that I like:
There are a couple by Jonathan Rand -
"The Least Offensive Play in the Whole Darn World" and "Check Please"
also there is a great version of "The Wizard of Oz" - the version adapted by Ann Coulter Martens (non musical).
------------- Check out The Denver Theatre Examiner! http://www.examiner.com/x-474-Denver-Theater-Examiner |
Posted By: Darren
Date Posted: 10/17/08 at 3:20pm
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Thanks! Quite a few of those look like they could work.
------------- Darren Farrington Theater Management and Production Consultant http://darrenfarrington.com - www.darrenfarrington.com |
Posted By: RutTut
Date Posted: 11/18/08 at 10:41pm
I'm head of a theatre department that does plays from K-12. We do mainly musicals for middle and grade school students--past selections have been Grease-School Edition, Seussical Jr., Honk Jr., Narnia. Some good non-musical scripts I have seen include Anne of Green Gables, James and the Giant Peach, Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden. Our high school just did Les Miserables-School Edition and we're doing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) in the spring. Past non musical high school titles have included The Cherry Orchard, Dearly Departed, Picnic, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, The Miracle Worker. We're kinda ambitious, but our summer camps have done plays like Big Bad Wolf, Bugz, Kiddleywinks. Good luck and happy reading !
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Posted By: Pamw
Date Posted: 11/19/08 at 8:21pm
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Look at Pioneer Drama Service, Playscripts, and Anchorage Press Plays for a lot of appropriate materials. I must also add the wonderful "Junior" musicals that MTI has as well as "G2K" from Rogers and Hammerstein as "name brand" but doable. ------------- Pam |
Posted By: Theatrefolk
Date Posted: 11/21/08 at 9:31pm
Everything in our catalogue is suitable for high school production: http://www.theatrefolk.com/products - http://www.theatrefolk.com/products Nearly everything is middle-school friendly. We list our most-recommended middle school picks here: http://www.theatrefolk.com/products/suitability/2-middle-school-plays - http://www.theatrefolk.com/products/suitability/2-middle-school-plays ------------- Theatrefolk: Scripts for High Schools, Middle Schools, and Elementary Schools http://www.theatrefolk.com - http://www.theatrefolk.com |
Posted By: charlz
Date Posted: 11/22/08 at 7:23pm
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You might want to look at, The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood. It's my favorite family show we've done and I always recommend it. We did it at our school about 4 years ago and it was a huge hit. Just saw another production of it a few weeks ago that blew me away at Orlando Rep. They really played up the Monty Python element. Found out it was being done down here from this link, the video is still up:
www.thedailycity.com/2008/10/video-preview-somewhat-true-tale-of.html Best, Charles |
Posted By: VisionE
Date Posted: 12/19/08 at 4:52pm
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You said you less interested in musicals but my daughter has been in a few of the musicals from this place and they were great. http://www.spotlightmusicals.com/ I liked Buffalo Bill's and Midsummer Nights Dream ------------- http://www.ectheatre.org/ http://www.spotlightmusicals.com/ |
Posted By: midgetking111
Date Posted: 1/17/09 at 10:16pm
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Here's a list of some good plays for middle school-high school age:
You Can't Take It With You
A Midsummer Night's Dream
High School Musical
Beauty and the Beast
Mystery of the Suffocated 7th Grader
Moon Over Buffalo
Peter Pan
A Christmas Story
Willy Wonka Junior ------------- Mystery of the Suffocated 7th Grader-Perry Paulson Willy Wonka Junior-Grandpa George Air Uganda-Swami Ramblenonada James and the Giant Peach-James Trotter Throughly Modern Millie-Bun Foo |
Posted By: Kathy B.
Date Posted: 5/16/10 at 9:32pm
| I would like to suggest A Midsummer Night's Midterm, Pioneer Drama Company. I have produced this twice (two different groups of kids in those age ranges)....introduces Shakespeare in a funny way and still presents the whole play! In about 70 minutes. I added one student, splitting some lines up; and wrote my own Shakespaerian-rhymed intro/welcome for the audience (presented in the beginning by the 8 fairies...2 boys who followed Oberon and the 6 girls were Titania's). The kids and audiences loved it. Both times, we had phenomenal talent which helped with the presentation. |
Posted By: JoeMc
Date Posted: 5/17/10 at 12:36am
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Try some of the G&S productions. they are in the public domain & there is a lot of scope to interprit, adapt & put your signature on them.
------------- [western] Gondawandaland "Hear the light & see the sound! TOI TOI CHOOKAS {may you always play to a full house!} |
Posted By: Lazy Bee
Date Posted: 6/17/10 at 12:29pm
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Take a look at:- - Gerald P. Murphy's 90-minute abridgement of http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=742 - A Midsummer Night's Dream - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=144 - Bl... Bl... Bluebeard by Mark Billen - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=1045 - The Three Musketeers by Karen Letts - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=496 - Dracula - The Final Countdown by Geoff Bamber - Charlie Cook's full-length adaptation of http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=944 - Pride and Prejudice - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=1053 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Dave Jeanes - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk/cgi-bin/Search_Results.asp?iSc=530 - The Raven by George Douglas Lee (a comic take on Poe's verse) These are all non-musical plays, all full-length (the Raven is shortest at around 65 minutes), all within the compas of your agegroup, and all the titles have name reconition! ------------- Stuart Lazy Bee Scripts http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk - http://www.lazybeescripts.co.uk read complete play scripts on-line |
Posted By: ozzieparker
Date Posted: 6/17/10 at 2:29pm
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Grass Widows by Pamela Parker ------------- You never know what's comin' for you. |
Posted By: jonplaywright
Date Posted: 7/13/10 at 2:00am
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Like Don, I have a number of plays at Playscripts (and elsewhere) that are well-suited to young actors, with my one-act dramedies (titles like Thank You for Flushing My Head in the Toilet and other rarely used expressions, 4 A.M. and After Math) being particularly popular. There is a list of my works on the Playscripts site here: http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=434 - http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=434 Additionally, my full catalogue--and most of my plays are suitable for young people--is here: http://jondorf.com/index2.html - http://jondorf.com/index2.html I'd also strongly recommend taking a look at YouthPLAYS, the new online publisher of plays for young actors and audiences. All plays may be read as free electronic perusals in their entirely, and production costs include royalties only--no script costs. You'll find dozens of scripts that are appropriate for middle and high school actors (including a great play, One Good Thing, by Don Zolidis!). Check us out at http://www.youthplays.com - www.youthplays.com . Cheers, Jon Dorf |