Introduce young actors to the key elements of performance with this handout that defines key staging terms and activities.

Historically, members of the upper class provide plenty of fodder for comedic writers. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is no exception, and a study guide for the classic play discusses some of the Victorian social...

You could spend a full day discussing The Phantom of the Opera and not scratch the surface, but a set of lessons about the literary elements and themes of the musical production is a great start. Young thespians build upon the...

Clothes might not make the man but they certainly do help an actor create a character. How costume designers employ the same elements of design found in sets (line, color, texture, shape) to realize a character is the focus of a lesson...

Before Hamilton, Lin Manuel-Miranda gained fame with In the Heights. A study guide prepares theater goers for a performance of the musical about a group of friends living in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights....

Here's a 15-page packet packed with ideas for warm-up activities that can be used for drama classes or in content courses. Each activity is coded to indicate materials needed, space requirements and appropriate audience. A great...

Young theatre artists engage in a scavenger hunt to acquaint themselves with set design. The challenge is to search the site and match a separate maquette with each of the 24 clues.

A writer has the responsibility to defend the less fortunate members of society. At least that was the view of Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables. The novel is the subject of a study guide from Orlando Shakespeare Theater....

The second interactive in a series of 10 introduces young scholars to character archetypes, archetypal plot patterns, and archetypal motifs, including the use of color. Learners read passages explaining the term and study examples from...

Address the literary elements in a piece of writing using these materials. The packet includes plenty of resources, and focuses mainly on theme, character, and point of view, with some materials for setting, symbolism, and author's...

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has delighted readers for generations. An in-depth study guide gives an overview of an adaptation of the classic story for the stage. Along with summaries of the plot and key characters, theater...

A study guide for Native Gardens, a dramatic play, introduces theater lovers to a set of a neighbors and the problems they face. Discussion questions in the guide tackle themes of racism, ageism, and classism.

George Bailey learns that it truly is a wonderful life when he discovered how many lives he has touched—not to mention how many new generations of lives the story touches every year. A study guide on It's a Wonderful Life ...

The final lesson in a series on theatre design spotlights how lighting is incorporated into a production. After watching videos that focus on lighting fixtures and their positioning, individuals create a basic design plan for a scene,...

Are you frustrated by searching for activities to engage readers in their study of Much Ado About Nothing? Sigh no more. Young thespians will find much to do in this Royal Shakespeare Company 23-page Toolkit. Included in the sections are...

Fans of musical theater may know the title tune of Into the Woods well, but do they know what the show is all about? A study guide provides information about the classic musical, including details about the characters and a summary of...

What's the difference between set dressing and a prop? Between a costume accessory and a personal prop? As part of their study of set and prop design, class members engage in a series of activities that prepare them to design a prop for...

Focus on plot and the impact-specific events in The Cay. Class members use their double-entry journals, created in a previous lesson in this series, to record their thinking about the guiding question as they read chapters 15 through 17....

Encourage your learners to examine the setting in Theodore Taylor's The Cay. Pupils work in small groups to put together a description of the setting before reading two more chapters of the book. They use their double-entry journals to...

Use Langston Hughes's poem, "Words Like Freedom," to explore the concepts of freedom and liberty. Learners read the poem, determine the theme, and use the provided graphic organizer to examine the connotative and denotative meanings of...

Choosing a poet or a theme, eighth graders conduct research in the world of poetry. They conduct Internet research and select five poems that fit their poet or theme, and create a seven slide PowerPoint presentation on their selected...

Build understanding of theme with an activity designed for The Cay and the Common Core. Small groups or pairs use graphic organizers to determine themes, find and record related details from the text, and formulate theme statements. In...

Shakespeare did more than write timeless literary works—he coined words such as moonbeam, fortune-teller, and even eyeball! A study guide for Henry V introduces key words the Bard first used with a fun vocabulary activity, part of a...

Conduct a close reading of chapter 9 of The Cay. Read the chapter again and ask pupils to respond to a list of included text-dependent questions. Finish the class with the provided writing assignment, which asks learners to use textual...