Our Full Store! - Materials, Lessons, Games & Tools for the Drama Classroom!

Are you a new teacher looking for ideas? Or, are you an experienced educator looking to change things up? Scholars On Stage collaborates with professional theater companies to create inspiring materials for theater educators, in the form of drama games, acting lessons, and performance projects!

In this bundle, you can purchase every item currently listed in our store!

Our products fall into four helpful categories:

• Drama Games
• Actor's Tool-Kit
• Actor's Challenge
• Setting the Stage for Shakespeare
• Ghosts, Superstitions, Curses, & Oddities of the Theater - 4 PowerPoints
• Holiday Themed Lessons

1) DRAMA GAMES

Love drama games, but you wish you knew more? Here, you will find 35 theater and improv games that are beloved by young actors in k-12 classes around the world. We've included step-by-step instructions, prompts, and helpful hints for your classroom!

Drama games encourage students to perform, direct, devise, and gain confidence while collaborating and creating theater. A good drama game can be enjoyed by students of any age or grade level, even those with little or no acting experience!

Each packet includes:

• Drama games with clear and simple instructions
• Prompts and examples for improvisation
• Definitions of key theatrical terms
• An explanation of the educational application for each drama game

Drama / Improvisation / Ensemble building games included in this bundle:

• GAME #1: PARTY QUIRKS
• GAME #2: SCENES FROM A HAT
• GAME #3: QUESTIONS ONLY
• GAME #4: FREEZE
• GAME #5: HITCHHIKER
• GAME #6: THREEPEAT
• GAME #7: SANSCRIPT
• GAME #8: ONE WORD STORY / ONE SENTENCE STORY
• GAME #9: THE DATING GAME
• GAME #10: SQUEEZE MURDER
• GAME #11: MUSEUM
• GAME #12: PRESS CONFERENCE
• GAME #13: ALIBI
• GAME #14: FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENT
• GAME #15: STORY BEADS
• GAME #16: ENVIRONMENT GAME
• GAME #17: VIDEOPHONE
• GAME #18: STAGE PAINTER
• GAME #19: JEUX DE CALAIS
• GAME #20: THREE LINE PLAY
• GAME #21: SCANTRON
• GAME #22: HERE COMES BILL / JILL
• GAME #23: SURVIVOR
• GAME #24: FORTUNE-TELLER
• GAME #25: LONDON GUARDS
• GAME #26: GUARDIAN ANGEL
• GAME #27: IN FIVE SECONDS MAKE…
• GAME #28: SCULPTURE GARDEN
• GAME #29: WILLOW IN THE WIND
• GAME #30: JE TOMBE
• GAME #31: WHO’S THE LEADER?
• GAME #32: MOVIE IN 2 MINUTES
• GAME #33: SILLY STATUES
• GAME #34: ON THE LINE
• GAME #35: GALLERY
• GAME #36: MINI-MONOLOGUE
• GAME #37: JOHN THE LOQUACIOUS GARDENER
• GAME #38: HORRIBLE ADVICE
• GAME #39: RADIO
• GAME #40: SLO-MO SCENES
• GAME #41: NOVEL
• GAME #42: I AM A TREE
• GAME #43: REPETITION
• GAME #44: MOVIE CRITIC
• GAME #45: TAP & SWEEP
• GAME #46: TRIGGER WORDS
• GAME #47: MEANWHILE
• GAME #48: EXCLUSION
• GAME #49: +/-5 MINUTES, DAYS, YEARS
• GAME #50: YOU THINK THAT'S BAD?
• GAME #51: FRANKEN-SCENE
• GAME #52: PRODUCT PITCH
• GAME #53: SONG TITLES
• GAME #54: BLACK BOX
• GAME #55: JEALOUS UNDERSTUDY

2) SCENE STUDY

Scene Production For Actors

Have you taught your students rehearsal strategies to practice and perform scripted scenes effectively? We've consulted with professional theaters, actors, and directors to streamline this 10-Lesson scene performance unit to guide high school performers from the moment they get their scripts until their final bows before the audience.

As a class unit or a final project, scripted scene work is often the ultimate assessment for young actors. This unit includes everything your drama students need to perform polished scenes for their peers.

Includes:

Lesson #1: Identifying Your Script and your Role

Lesson #2: Character Inside & Out

Lesson #3: Objectives and Tactics

Lesson #4: Blocking

Lesson #5: Memorization

Lesson #6: Rehearsal Power-Hour

Lesson #7: Technical Elements

Lesson #8: Peer Performance Assessment

Lesson #9: Keeping it fresh

Lesson #10: The Final Run Through

Additional teacher resources include:

• A Scene Performance Assessment Rubric
• 4 Classic Scenes to Workshop
• A list of Scene Suggestions for High School Performers

Memorization Strategies

Have you noticed that students are required to memorize speeches, scenes, & monologues, but are never taught how? This lesson makes memorization simple & straightforward for work in the theater, language arts, debate, or public speaking!

In this lesson, you will find: A memory game/activity designed to promote student engagement, and a stranger-than-fiction overview of memorization feats from around the world. Students will find a six-page packet of memorization techniques, potential monologues for practice, and a grading rubric to measure their progress.

Includes:

• A fun full-class engagement activity
• Incredible facts about memory & a guide to understanding how memory works
• 6 pages of memorization techniques
• 8 monologues to workshop memorization skills
• A grading rubric to measure progress

What's My Motivation? Objectives and Tactic Lessons For Actors

Ready to push your student actors to a higher level? Teach your drama class advanced acting fundamentals like motivation, objectives, and tactics through fun performance drills and theatrical performances. These lessons include key terminology and background information, but most importantly, performance-based activities so drama students can learn on the stage, not at a desk!

Includes:

• Clear and Concise Definitions for Key Terms
• Examples of Motivation, Objectives, and Tactics, and How Actors Use Them
• Challenge #1: Using Improv to Explore Tactics
• Challenge #2: Create Scenes Based on Prompts From Plays
• Challenge #3: Scripted Scenes for Actors

Surviving Stage Fright

Every drama teacher wants their student actors to feel safe on stage - But we all know how nervous they can get, and it's tough to not know how to help. These materials teach students what stage fright is, why actors experience it, and most importantly, how high school actors can use simple methods to manage it!

Includes:

• Tips for teachers to create a safe performing environment
• Explanations of stage fright and why it happens
• A surprising list of popular performers who struggle with stage fright.
• 12 methods to manage performance paralysis
• A performance plan for students to manage their own response to stage fright

Actor's Rehearsal Planner & Practice Log

Are some of your student-actors overwhelmed at the thought of bringing a performance from a script to the stage? We created this packet to give our drama & acting students manageable steps, goals, & a way to measure progress in rehearsals!

These goal-setting forms and rehearsal logs have made it so much easier for our actors to manage their rehearsal time, and we have come to use them for monologues, scenes, & school plays as well!

Includes:

• 2 pages of practice logs and goal setting forms
• 21 clear steps to prepare for a performance
• A checklist to keep track of student progress.

Vocal Tools For Acting

Need help showing actors how to use their voices to create expression & character? This drama lesson provides 5 vocal tools, "Pace, punch, pitch, pause, and power", & lets students practice by performing their own interpretations of famous movie lines!

In this lesson, you will find simple and clear definitions of the 5 vocal tools, examples of how actors can document them, a list of famous movie lines to explore, a fun worksheet to demonstrate understanding, and a rubric to assess students learning.

Includes:

• A suggested lesson outline for teachers
• Definitions of 5 basic tools for vocal acting: Pace, punch, pitch, pause, and Exercisepower.
• A collection of famous movie lines
• A worksheet for actors to explore their own interpretations of famous movie lines
• A rubric for assessment

Actor's Planner and Rehearsal Log

Are some of your student-actors overwhelmed at the thought of bringing a performance from a script to the stage? We created this packet to give our drama & acting students manageable steps, goals, & a way to measure progress in rehearsals!

These goal-setting forms and rehearsal logs have made it so much easier for our actors to manage their rehearsal time, and we have come to use them for monologues, scenes, & school plays as well!

Includes:

• 2 pages of practice logs and goal setting forms
• 21 clear steps to prepare for a performance
• A checklist to keep track of student progress.

Are some of your student-actors overwhelmed at the thought of bringing a performance from a script to the stage? We created this packet to give our drama & acting students manageable steps, goals, & a way to measure progress in rehearsals!

These goal-setting forms and rehearsal logs have made it so much easier for our actors to manage their rehearsal time, and we have come to use them for monologues, scenes, & school plays as well!

Includes:

• 2 pages of practice logs and goal setting forms
• 21 clear steps to prepare for a performance
• A checklist to keep track of student progress.

3) ACTOR'S CHALLENGE

Our "Actor's Challenge" series is a collection of zero-prep-required lessons for theater teachers, each one highlighting a different dramatic device for actors to add to their toolkit. All you need to do is print them out, and play! Lessons include:

Commedia Dell'Arte

Want to challenge your actors with physical comedy, hilarious characters, & timeless humor? Our commedia dell'arte lesson is a high-energy introduction to classic comic routines, lazzi, & timeless plots of romance, mischief, & misadventure.

Lesson Includes:

• A suggested lesson structure for the teacher
• A rundown of the 10 most popular stock characters
• A summary of 20 classic Italian comedy bits 
• A worksheet for creating an original commedia dell'arte performance
• A grading rubric to assess and measure progress

Leader, Follower, Fool

Status Scenes - Want a challenge for your intermediate & advanced drama students? Introduce your performers to status-based scene work! This lesson provides fun performance activities & prompts to practice this significant theater concept that a serious actor must master!

Includes:

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher
• A variety of 3 performance drills to incorporate status into performance
• Handouts and worksheets explaining key terms.
• 27 prompts providing characters, situations, to base scenes on.
• An assessment rubric

Create a Character

This is an all-time favorite project that our students talk about for years! In this 10-hour character development unit, students will create an original human character based on an animal through research, movement drills, devising, and improvisation!

Includes:

• Project outline with examples of student work
• TASK #1 - Building Your Character’s Foundation Handout
• TASK #2 - "A Day in the Life" guided imagery and movement drill
• TASK #3 - "The Concrete Jungle" Animals in a human setting comedic scene drill
• TASK #4 – "Transformation" physical transition from animal-to-human exercise
• TASK #5 - "King of the Jungle" devised/improvised scene with 2 actors
• TASK #6 - "Human with Animal Characteristics Biography" creative project.
• TASK #7 - "The Final Interview" Questions to run an interview with the new character
• An assessment rubric to measure student learning.

Stage Pictures

How do directors and actors create powerful dramatic stage pictures? "Actor's Challenge: Stage Pictures" is a stand-alone drama lesson that shows students how to create exceptional tableaus and blocking, and makes them the directors!

Includes:

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher.
• A guide with visual aides on how to create compelling stage pictures.
• 25 stage picture prompts, with characters and staging hints.
• A student worksheet to plan tableaus.
• A rubric to assess student growth.

Subtext Scenes

Are your students struggling to master subtext, the meaning beneath a character's lines? Not for long! This lesson provides 20 mini-scenes that are written to be performed 3 times with 3 different assigned subtexts! A delightful tool for young actors!

Includes:

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher
• A variety of 3 performance drills to incorporate status into performance
• Handouts and worksheets explaining key terms.
• 27 prompts providing characters, situations, to base scenes on.
• An assessment rubric

Emotional Boundaries

Want a laugh-out-loud improvisation game that drama students beg to play? In this game, actors perform prompted scenes, but must change their character's emotions each time they move to a new part of the stage, no matter how wild the result!

Includes:

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher
• The unique game is described in simple steps with tips for student actors
• 20 unique prompts providing settings, characters, and emotions
• 120 emotion cards

Half-a-logue

How do you introduce students to the building blocks of performing a monologue? Use this exhilarating activity, where actors must improvise one side of a phone conversation, conveying relationships, objectives, & tactics to achieve their goal!

Includes:

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher
• 30 prompts providing characters, situations, and objectives
• Questions for group reflections
• An assessment rubric

The Actor's Nightmare

Every actor’s worst nightmare: What if everyone onstage knew their lines, except for you? This is a wonderful and hilarious improvisation game for drama students of any age or level. Our theater students often say this is their favorite improv activity!

• Detailed lesson instructions for the teacher
• 26 ready-to-use scripts
• Explanation of the classic and beloved source material

4) SETTING THE STAGE FOR SHAKESPEARE

Do you struggle to engage students with Shakespeare? We've collaborated with professional actors, theater historians, & experts in creative dramatics to develop these 6 lessons, designed to inspire theater & language arts to love the work of the Bard!

This bundle includes 6 of our most popular activities, and is sold at a 25% discount from the original price!

Setting the Stage for Shakespeare: Drawing Shakespeare's Metaphors addresses the visual nature of Shakespeare's language by having students draw artistic interpretations of some of his most colorful quotes. Product Includes:

• Detailed step-by-step guide for teachers.
• 2 pages of carefully selected Shakespeare quotes.
• Illustrations modeling expectations, including a 1-page example of student work.
• A worksheet for students to create their artwork on.
• A scoring rubric.

Setting The Stage for Shakespeare: Elizabethan England on Five Tuppence a Day quizzes students on how much they really know about the incredible day-to-day life in Elizabethan England. Product includes:

• A 30 question multiple-choice quiz focusing on daily life, the nation, and the theatre.
• A teacher's key with detailed explanations of each answer.
• Follow-up class discussion questions.

Setting the Stage For Shakespeare: If Shakespeare Wrote About You presents a series of ice-breaker questions, where students are encouraged to share about themselves and learn what type of play they would be a character in. It can be completed either as a written questionnaire, or an active full class game! Product includes:

• 20 fun multiple-choice questions.
• Explanations of the 4 categories of Shakespeare's plays.
• A teacher's key explaining which play is referenced in each question and answer.

Setting the Stage for Shakespeare: Write a Shakespearean Scene shows how, with just seven steps, students can write their own scene in the style of Shakespeare's language. Product includes:

• A handout that models 7 easy steps to mimic Elizabethan English.
• A worksheet for students to write their own scene.
• A grading rubric.

Setting the Stage for Shakespeare: Surprising Shakespeare is an engaging introduction to Shakespeare's plot and characters - Covertly disguised as a fun creative script-writing challenge. Product includes:

• Detailed step-by-step instructions for a 2-day lesson.
• 18 Shakespeare-based prompts for students to adapt into their own original scripts.
• A 2-page teacher's "Prompt Key", explaining which plays each prompt is from.
• A 1-page example of student work.
• A scoring rubric.

Setting The Stage for Shakespeare: William Shakespeare, Tabloid Star

How do you teach the life of a man shrouded in mystery? In "William Shakespeare: Tabloid Star" students become investigative reporters, exposing the life of Shakespeare in the form of celebrity gossip. Student groups are given tantalizing scoops, guiding them to the real scandals and theories that have followed Shakespeare for centuries!

Included material:

• Assignment description and example of student work.
• Scoops and investigative clues surrounding 6 stages of Shakespeare's life
• A teacher's key with detailed explanations of each clue and scandal.
• Rubric to assess student learning

Haunting True Stories of the "MacBeth" Curse is a perfect-for-Halloween Powerpoint, highlighting 10 frightening disasters linked to this legendary, ominous play. Product includes:

• The history of the famous "curse".
• 16 engaging and artfully created slides.
• 10 detailed, spooky, and real historical incidents.

5) Ghosts, Superstitions, Curses, & Oddities - 4 PowerPoints

Each Halloween, our acting students beg to learn about the spooky folklore of the theater. So, we created our "Ghosts, Superstitions, Curses, and Oddities from the world of Theater" PowerPoint bundle! Every time we shared these, students begged for more!

In these four PowerPoints, students will learn everything from the origins of theater superstitions, the alleged "ghosts" that inhabit the world's biggest stages, impossibly strange performances, and of course, the eerie, amazing, and little-known true stories behind the famous curse of "The Scottish Play."

In this bundle, you will find 4 of our favorite PowerPoints :

• Haunting True Stories of The MacBeth Curse (16 slides)
• Theatrical Cabinet of Curiosities (35 slides)
• Superstitions of the Stage (16 slides)
• The World's 5 Most Haunted Theaters (16 slides)

Halloween is the most theatrical of holidays! We hope these lessons can bring joy (and maybe a few screams) into your drama classroom!

6) Holiday Themed Lessons

Invent & Present Your Own Holiday! Create a Theater Pageant for a New Holiday!

Have you ever wanted to invent your own holiday? The Christmas season is the perfect time for this lesson, which combines acting, playwriting, devising, even singing! Drama students will work in groups to create a totally original holiday, and then put on a theatrical pageant, showing the class how to celebrate it!

Includes:

• A step-by-step guide to creating a holiday
• An example of a holiday pageant
• Helpful examples, prompts, and brainstorming resources
• Outline & script worksheet
• Checklist to assess student work

Veteran's Day Lesson: 12 Monologues Adapted From Soldier's Letters Home

How do you honor Veteran's Day in a drama class? We've adapted 12 amazing letters from soldiers, written during World War 1, Vietnam, Korea, the Civil War, Iraq & the Afghan war, and turned them into monologues for student actors. Some are harrowing, some heartbreaking, and some are even humorous.

Includes:

• Multiple projects options
• 12 monologues ready for performance.
• Letters adapted from the Civil War, World War 1, Vietnam, & the War on Terror
• Variety of subjects, including combat, coming home, friendship, and heartbreak.

So you've Been Bit By A Zombie - A Halloween Lesson For Young Actors

Want a fun, frightening, and funny activity that is perfect for Halloween? Teach your students how to stumble, groan, and work together to create a frightening zombie hoard! These theater activities are perfect for actors in drama class, or anyone that wants to add a little Halloween fun to their classroom.

Includes:

• Handout instructing how to act & move like a zombie
• Performance Drill #1 - Body Isolations
• Performance Drill #2 - Group Movement Challenge
• Performance Drill #3 - Original Scene Prompts
• Checklist to assess student work

So You've Been Bitten By A Werewolf - A Halloween Lesson For Young Actors

Show your students how to act like a werewolf with specific and detailed physicality, vocals, and movements. Then have them craft their own short scenes from our list of prompts! This is a fun, zero-prep-required lesson for your class. All you need to do is print them out, and play!

Includes:

• Handouts and visual aids portraying how to act & move like a Werewolf
• Performance Drill #1 - The Last Minutes Before Midnight
• Performance Drill #2 - The Alpha
• Performance Drill #3 - Scene Prompts
• Checklist to assess student work

So You've Been Bitten By A Vampire - A Halloween Lesson For Young Actors

Teach your students how to charm and frighten while performing as the classic monster, Count Dracula! Show your students how to play Dracula with specific and detailed vocal tricks and movements. Then have them craft their own short scenes from our list of prompts!

Includes:

• Handout instructing how to act & move like Count Dracula
• Handout instructing how to speak with Dracula's accent and dialect
• Performance Drill #1 - The Vampire of Strasbourg - Ensemble Building Game
• Performance Drill #2 - Stalking the Prey - Movement Excersize
• Performance Drill #3 - The Vampire's Speech - Accent & Dialect Vocal Performance
• Checklist to assess student work

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