Stage Start: 20 Plays for Children

The plays in the collection are
The Lion and the Mouse
The Little Red Hen
The Gingerbread Man
The Ants and the Grasshopper
The Enormous Turnip
Chicken Licken
The Hare and the Tortoise
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Ugly Duckling
The Boy who cried Wolf
Chinese New Year
The Lonely Dragon
How the Zebra got his Stripes
The Selfish Giant
The Land of Trolls and Gargoyles
No Excuse
Caught in the Act
Anne of Green Gables
At Doctor Crowne's
A Winter’s Night
Each play is between five minutes and twenty minutes long. The plays can be adapted to suit the various needs of the class/group. The first eight plays use a lot of repetition so it is very easy for young children to learn their lines. The cast list is flexible – more characters can be added and existing characters can be changed or omitted. Most of the characters can be on stage throughout the play, with children walking to the centre of the stage when it is time to say their lines. In the initial plays the teacher/leader can assume the role of the storyteller if the children can’t read or are not at the reading level required.
The costumes for all the plays are or can be very simple. For example, the children can just wear something in the colour of their animal, wear a mask or use some face paint. A word of advice: if the children wear masks, make sure they don’t cover their mouths as it would make it difficult to hear them speak. The rest of the plays also have a flexible cast list as more characters can be added and existing characters can be added or omitted easily depending on the requirement of the group. All suggestions for stage directions are included in brackets and italics.