Look at the show Door to Door or the show The Waiting Room that are both available from Pioneer Drama. They are easy to do, short enough, simple sets (we used black boxes for Door to Door at competition), and Pioneer is easy to work with if you need to make cuttings or rearrange things. Door to Door is a series of vignettes and monologues and The Waiting Room is a small cast that can be pulled together quickly (there are only perhaps two parts that need good memorization skills). HIGHLY RECOMMEND BOTH!
Original Message:
Sent: 09-21-2023 11:39
From: CJ Breland
Subject: 10 G7-12 Students, 18 Hrs of Rehearsal, What to do?
I would probably go with a play that consists of monologues and scenes between 2 or 3 students so they can rehearse simultaneously and semi-autonomously, with you moving from group to group to watch and give notes. When I did this sort of play with a class, I also had the various groups watch each other and hold book for one another. It is possible to work up a collection like this very quickly.
If your 18 weeks of meetings have already started, you want to go with a publishing company that is easy to deal with and has online previews and digital copies as an option.
My 9th-grade students liked some of the scenes in Jon Jory's Love, Death, and the Prom, and older students liked his University. Dramatic Publishing has those, plus an updated University: A New Generation for which there is a digital copy option, so you can print the scripts yourself. (I have not read it.) https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/university-a-new-generation-digital-script
I noticed Jory is one of the playwrights of a set of pandemic-era plays included in My Life--Socially Distanced published by Eldridge. You can buy a digital download and print your own scripts. Very economical. https://histage.com/my-life-socially-distanced (Again, I haven't read it.)
If your group is more classically minded, you might do the same thing with duo scenes pulled from Shakespeare. There are so many sources online for Shakespeare's scripts now. I like the set put online by MIT--yep, Massachusetts Institute of Technology--because you can search a whole play for a few words in sequence to home in on the particular scene you want to copy and paste for a script. For instance, if you search for "Taming of the Shrew MIT", then Ctrl F "dainty Kate", you go directly to the first scene between Katharina and Petrucchio. No copyright. No royalties. Copy, paste, print, rehearse.
Good luck!
------------------------------
CJ Breland
Retired Theatre Arts Educator
NC
Original Message:
Sent: 09-20-2023 22:50
From: Sean Graham
Subject: 10 G7-12 Students, 18 Hrs of Rehearsal, What to do?
Hello all,
My school asked me to setup a grade 7-12 club on Fridays for students interested in theatre, but unable to join the elective. I ended up with 10 students. Originally they told me we had 20 weeks to prepare a show. We meet for 2 hours each week. However, they now say we only have around 9 weeks, so about 18 hours of actual time together. With such a small amount of time and a small cast, I thought we could just do a 30-minute improv session. However, I am curious if the community has any other suggestions for what type of performance we could muster? Thanks in advance.
------------------------------
Sean Graham
Performing Arts & Homeroom Teacher
Troupe Director, Troupe 11103
Proud Producer of Theater in Taiwan
Intl. Bilingual Sch. at Central Taiwan Sci. Park
------------------------------