ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on performance and on playscripts as texts, those playscripts children read and perform and those they write and perform. Playscripts are texts in prose or in verse written for performance. Playscripts differ from stories most obviously in that dialogue must carry the meaning, and in their inclusion of stage directions and sometimes notes about props and costume. Playscripts for children often have only one act with a number of scenes. The stories on which published playscripts for children are based come from many sources; some draw on familiar traditional tales while others come from the work of recent writers. David Wood has adapted some of Roald Dahl’s stories as playscripts for children in his ‘Plays for Children’ series for Puffin. The teacher’s challenge in using William Shakespeare’s work is to find ways of helping children make some connection with the plays’ themes and with the motivations, emotions and feelings of the characters.
