The Magic Garden by Irene Corey is designed for theatre-goers between ages 5-9 and unfolds a nutritional tale: the battle of vegetables vs. sweets.

A Midsummer Night's Dream adapted by Aurand Harris uses William Shakespeare in a humorous fashion to introduce children to the Bard in this tale of mistaken identity, love, and mischievous fairies.

Dramatists Play Service

Dragonwings by Lawrence Yep is the story of a Chinese boy who comes to America and his struggles adjusting to life in his new country.

The Children's Crusade by Paul Thompson tells the tale of the failed idealism of young children in the 13th century who attempted to take back Jerusalem for Christian Europe.

Dogbrain by Michael Weller tells the story of a six-year-old boy who has an imaginary friend: he blames the creature for everything he does wrong, until it comes to life one day and wrecks havoc on his family!

Marco Polo by Jonathan Levy re-tells the story of the famous explorer in a kid-friendly fashion.

Question 4

Plays for Children is a useful source of play anthologies. This website is an ideal place for teachers to go when they need scripts that suit specific classroom needs, such as plays for Christmas, plays about historical figures, or plays with large casts. Although the ideal might be to find a play of the highest literary quality, or a subject that suits the children's imagination (such as an adaptation of Harry Potter) sometimes middle school...

The plays listed are often intended for holiday productions or school events (such as Black History Month or a spring pageants).
Dramatics Magazine provides feature articles and one-act plays intended for older students. Most of the content seems fairly cursory, such as very short interviews with young playwrights. These content areas might be better supplemented with material online or in books rather than the very brief articles from this magazine.

Question 5

I was neither concerned nor surprised by the Montana Office of Public Instruction standards: the standards regarding interpreting scripts seem directly related to student's performance in the English classroom. Refining children's analysis of character, plot, development and other elements of story-telling are essential components of arts education and basic literary studies. Students must understand that learning about theater is fun, but it is 'serious fun' like learning the content of academic subjects.

Many of the elements of analyzing theater can be applied to film and television, such as understanding a character's motivation, creating dialogue, and understanding how a visual set-up influences an audience's impression of a production. Theater is the original source of what became film and TV: but access to live theater is far rarer today. They makes it all the more important to study it in school, given that students may struggle to have theater in their lives after they graduate.