Theatre and Drama

Theatre and drama are the focus in this month's column.. (ECB also provides excellent video resources on Theatre and Drama for Wisconsin teachers.)

General | Sets | Costumes | Plays and Playwrights | Lesson Plans | Instructional Video Series for Wisconsin Teachers

General

The Creative Drama and Theatre Education Resource Site provides brief, easy-to-use ideas for classroom or school theatre group activities. Created by a theatre teacher, the site features a list of possible plays for performance, and organizations to contact to secure performance rights.

Performing Arts in America 1875-1923, from The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, captures performing arts of the early 20th century with photography, recorded sound, and film. Users can browse by format.

The Chinese Stage introduces the history, characters, costumes, and instruments of traditional Chinese opera. Students from Singapore created the site for a ThinkQuest competition.

Kabuki for Everyone explains the history of Japan's Kabuki drama style, and gives a step-by-step guide to creating a Kabuki role through make-up.

Learn about Japanese Kabuki and Noh theatre forms in the Young Culture section of Kids Web Japan. Sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it features children who are preserving cultural and artistic traditions.

Touring with the Stars in a Royal Production provides tips for kids interested in becoming actors and actresses. In addition to an extensive section on what it's like to be a kid in a touring production, this multilingual site in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German includes sections on theater terms, jobs behind the scenes, and much more.

Who Does What in the Theatre from ArtsLynx gives brief descriptions of many theatre jobs, and shows that you don't have to be an actor to be involved in this profession.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts offers arts-based educational programming free to teachers and students across the country through the Performing Arts Series. Programs feature artists and companies who perform at the Kennedy Center and explore the areas of music, dance, theater, and literature.

Sets

The International Theatre Design Archive features photographs of scenery and lighting designs from productions around the country.

The Society of British Theatre Designers Web site features a gallery with photographs of sets from many productions in England.

Designing Shakespeare illustrates the history of theatre design for Shakespeare's plays during the last 40 years of the 20th century. It offers images and information from many performances, audio and video interviews with set designers, and VRML models of theatre sets.

The Ballet Russe Scenery Collection features photographs of drop curtains (background scenery) from the Ballet Russe in Monte Carlo.

Costumes

The History of Costume has images of historical dress from antiquity to the end of the 19th century. This book is an excellent source for students of

The Costar Vintage Clothing and Costume Archive offers information about historical costumes and clothing. This site is from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Department of Dramatic Art and the PlayMakers Repertory Company.

The Museum of Costume in Bath, England, features the Costume Drama game. Student costume designers can test their knowledge of styles of dress appropriate for different eras.

The Costume Museum in Kyoto, Japan, presents an exhibit titled Costume History in Japan. It includes photographs and detailed drawings of garments and accessories worn throughout Japan's history.

The International Theatre Design Archive mentioned above in Sets also features photographs of costume designs from productions around the country.

Plays and Playwrights

Shakespeare: Subject to Change is an interactive multimedia exploration of some aspects of Shakespeare's works, including language, different text versions of plays, and analysis of two film interpretations of Hamlet.

Celebrating Sondheim, from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, provides lesson ideas and learning activities, a biography and career timeline for the composer-lyricist, and synopses of four of his musicals. Print on the site is hard to read, but most pages are available as PDF documents.

The New York Public Library's Best of Times: The Theatre of Charles Dickens highlights Dickens' role as performer, playwright, and author upon whose works many theatrical adaptations have been based.

PBS's Great Performances series features "Meet the Artists," "Behind the Scenes," and "A Look at the Work" sections for many popular musical theatre shows such as Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Oklahoma! and others.

Women of Color, Women of Words offers biographical information and lists of plays written by many female African-American playwrights.

Musicals101.com includes a history of the musical and a section on how to produce a school musical. Useful features include low-budget suggestions and a list of American rights providers for over 500 major musical shows.

The Library of Congress exhibit The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project 1935-1939 provides images of artifacts from three plays performed by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project. Among artifacts are photos, costume and set designs, playbills, incidental music, and posters.

Lesson Plans

Readers' Theater with Jan Brett is a lesson plan for kindergarten-grade 2 from the International Reading Association's (IRA) Read-Write-Think Web site. Focusing on the literary elements of Hedgie's Surprise leads students to create costumes, props, and sets for a performance.

Also from the IRA Read-Write-Think Web site, this Readers' Theatre lesson plan for grades 3-5 invites students to develop scripts, perform in groups, and practice using their voices to depict characters.

Beyond the Story: A Dickens of a Party from the IRA asks 6-8 graders to attend a 19th Century party as a character from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

In Designing a Shoe Box Set for Willy Wonka from the Kennedy Center's ArtsEdge site, K-4 students identify settings in the play, Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka, creatively use their bodies to create a setting, and then plan a set for a scene in the play.

Illusion and Reality in American Drama is a lesson plan from ArtsEdge for grades 9-12 that examines divergent themes and innovative forms of three of America's most celebrated playwrights: Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams.

Instructional Video Series for Wisconsin Teachers
Wisconsin teachers may tape these programs for classroom use. Click on each link to find information about the program, teacher guide and broadcast schedule from the ECB Instructional Database.

Drama from Club Write (grades 4-6)

Shakespeare's Globe (grades 7-12)

Macbeth (grades 9-12)

Miller Shorts (grades 9-12)

Shakespeare Shorts (grades 9-12)

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