Maybe you've lucked out and snagged the use of a real stage and theatre venue for your school play. Not all schools are lucky enough to have these facilities, though (much to our chagrin), and not all classes get to use them even when there is a stage on school grounds. When you start looking for potential performance spaces, though, you might be amazed by the number of things that can suddenly turn into the most magnificent places to put on a play.
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN
Weather permitting, outdoor areas are fantastic for plays. Outdoor stages used to be the only places big enough for crowds to gather and watch, and were used in Ancient Greece and Medieval England and right up through the many park-based performance that happen around the world today.
Search for an outdoor space in your school, and remember, the audience needs more unobstructed space than your cast will—any open area will do, and if there's something to serve as a playing area at one end, so much the better.
THE PLAYGROUND'S THE THING (WHEREIN YOU'LL CATCH THE DRAMA IN A SWING?)
Let your students get creative, and stage your play on the structures that define recreation and play for the younger years. There aren't better castles to be found than the multi-tiered platforms of the modern playground, slides can make for nice surprise entrances, and monkey bars, bridges, and more can be fonts of ingenuity.
Again, seating your audience is the biggest constraint. Think about doing your play "in the round" if the playground is small enough for your actors to be heard on all sides, or pick a piece of equipment with an adjacent audience area and make sure your students know which way to point the action.
THE POWER OF BEAUTY WILL SOONER TRANSFORM HONESTY
Maybe your classroom is the most practical—or only possible—place for you to put on your school play. Great! But that doesn't mean you can't transform the space, and let beauty (or whatever look you're going for) replace the "honesty" of the whiteboard, the pencil pots , and the beige walls.
A little fabric can work a lot of magic, not only as a backdrop but acting to mask off a "backstage" area that provides your students with real entrances and exits and helps keep your audience engaged. Rearrange tables and desks in a configuration that doesn't just create the amount of space you need, but that actively shapes it into something special.
DISPOSSESSING ALL MY OTHER PARTS OF NECESSARY FITNESS
Finally, the school assembly hall and/or lunch room (they're sometimes one and the same) provides all the space you could want. It provides a bit less of an opportunity to customize than a classroom, and a little less room for off-the-wall thinking than outdoor areas and playgrounds, it's true. A little imagination and some painted flats can create the stage you need, though, and the audience should have plenty of room and a great view.
Or skip the flats altogether and do your play in the hall—minimalism's making a comeback these days!