It’s showtime! Everyone’s hard work during the past few days has led up to a performance. Since performers frequently do their best work in front of a live audience, invite students to present the script to their classmates, schoolmates, teachers, parents/guardians, office staff and principal, and other members of the community.
Remember, however, that reader’s theater scripts are NOT to be memorized. Performance is done “book in hand,” as when actors do a staged reading of a play.
Still, it is a live performance. And the same performing-without-a-net energy that makes live theater so vital can turn into an actor’s nightmare.
Here are some tips on how to deal with performance flubs and audience curveballs from storyteller and reader’s theater maven Aaron Shepard, author of Readers On Stage:
- If the audience laughs, stop speaking until they can hear you again.
- If someone talks in the audience, don’t pay attention.
- If someone walks into the room, don’t look.
- If you make a mistake, pretend it was right.
- If you drop something, try to leave it until the audience is looking elsewhere.
- If someone forgets to read, see if you can read the part instead, or make something up, or maybe just skip over it—but don’t whisper to the reader.
- If readers “fall on their rear end,” pretend they didn’t.
Also, check out a live performance of Casey at the Bat:
Read the entire Reader’s Theater Series:
- Reader’s Theater Day 1: Multiple Reading Opportunities
- Reader’s Theater Day 2: Echo-Reading
- Reader’s Theater Day 3: Choral Read and Table Read
- Reader’s Theater Day 4: Repeated Read/Rehearsal
Several weeks ago, we first introduced Reader’s Theater, one of our favorite ways to teach and enhance literacy in an engaging, oral format. Since then, we’ve heard from our readers that one of the biggest challenges with incorporating Reader’s Theater into the classroom is how to pick the right story.
Well, there is no easy answer because “right” is clearly subjective based on age, literacy level, and class dynamics. But in our experience, we have found a few good tips to keep in mind.
In general, you should look for stories that:
- Have a lot of dialogue
- Have easy-to-read, natural, and/or familiar dialogue
- Are entertaining (i.e., offer humor, action, or mystery)
- Have strong characters
- Have a diverse array of characters
- Have enough parts for all students in the classroom (some of whom will be narrators)
- Connect to other parts of the curriculum
- Have relevance to students’ lives
Of course, everyone has their own favorites from Shakespeare to picture books to folk tales. Personally I like the “fractured” fairy tale Little Green Riding Hood, but you need to experiment to find what’s right for you and your class. Bottom line, if you love it as the teacher, you will pass that passion on to your students!
As a side note, click here for an inspirational story about how one teacher in Asheville, North Carolina, used Reader’s Theater (what she called a “magic solution”) to improve the literacy level of every child in her class. In just 10 weeks, the children achieved one grade level of growth and after a year, the children jumped three grade levels.
What are some of your favorite stories to use for Reader’s Theater? Why?
