Edith Weiss is the author of several published children’s plays, including six with Pioneer Drama Service.  A lot of Edith’s writing time goes into her stand-up comedy routine, which has taken her all over the country and on three overseas military tours.  Besides writing, she also acts and directs in both children’s and adult theatre.

The Awesome and Excellent Play Reading Committee
Or...  The Committee That Will
Dramatically Reduce Your Work Load

by Edith Weiss

Okay, let’s come right out with it:  reading plays for your upcoming production is time consuming.  Year after year, season after season, you spend countless hours burning the midnight light bulb in an effort to pick a play that is doable, within your budget and exciting for the kids.

Should you go to bed and let the kids decide all by themselves?  Certainly not.  You don’t want to leave such an important decision entirely up to them.  Their suggestions might range from The Book of Mormon to The Lion King to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  Most students don’t understand script availability, budget concerns or what would be appropriate for their venue.

There are, however, many benefits to allowing your students to have a say in this process by creating an “Awesome and Excellent Play Reading Committee.”  (Yes, it’s a dramatic title, but we are in drama here, right?)  Those students interested in having a say in the upcoming production should be willing to invest time in the process by joining the committee.  This group can be a win-win situation for both you and your students.  For you, it’s a perfect time-saving solution, since we already know you don’t have enough time to get everything done.  For students, it’s an easy way to expand the activities of the drama program and offer another avenue for participation.  It also provides you some wonderful teachable moments as you get your most motivated students involved in the more pragmatic aspects of the pre-production process.

An Awesome and Excellent Play Reading Committee can be a grand success, but you have to set parameters up front, letting the students know that it is a collaborative process and that they will have a lot of say, but you still get the final okay and aren’t giving up total control.  Then by going back and forth through the steps of the process, you can save yourself a significant amount of time and give your students a real voice in the selection process.  (As a side benefit, you’ll discover that students don’t complain about what play is chosen when they know it was student-selected.)  This collaborative process can work in many ways; following is just one possible model that exemplifies how this back-and-forth effort can work.

First, talk to the committee about the upcoming season.  What genre would they like?  Murder mystery, drama, comedy, a children’s play, a play about teenage life?  Hopefully, they can narrow it down to one or two genres.  The approximate cast size and running time also need to be defined, whether by you or the committee.  The next step is to look through catalogs and websites.  Guide them to the publisher or publishers you like to work with, sharing with them why you don’t work with other publishers.  Show them how to take a look at the publisher’s websites or catalog and find search engines to organize the plays by genre, cast size and more.  Keeping your approximate cast size and production needs in mind, have them pick a handful that sound good to them from each genre they’ve decided on.

Now it’s your turn.  Read the catalog descriptions of the ones they’ve selected, narrow it down to the ones you feel show the most promise and order preview copies.  When the scripts come in, you don’t have to stay up late at night reading them!  Have the committee read the plays to narrow the options down further.

Once the list is narrowed to only a few options, guide the committee through a group reading of each script.  Assign parts and don’t be afraid to reassign characters part way through so everyone gets lots to do and you get to see and hear multiple interpretations of every role.  Having the plays read aloud by your student actors will be especially helpful to you since the kids will eventually be acting in the show.  Can they relate to the issues brought up in the drama?  Are they feeling the suspense in the murder mystery?  Do they think the comedy is funny?  It might be hilarious to you, but it may fall flat for them, which will make your job harder when it comes time to direct them.  The group reading will help you answer many questions that arise during the pre-production process and will give you some foresight about a show’s potential.  Reading a play on your own pales in comparison to a reading done by interested actors.  You will no doubt see things in it you wouldn’t otherwise.

After the readings, allow a few days for everyone to think about the plays before you meet for your Final Decision Meeting.  The additional time will allow students to discuss and debate the choices amongst themselves.  Perhaps you have the type of program where you could introduce the concept of dramaturgy, asking them do some further research on the plays they like.

When it’s time for the Final Decision Meeting, make sure the kids look at all the aspects that need to be considered.  They need to learn about working within a fixed budget and how royalty fees vary not only from company to company, but also by genre.  They need to determine whether a play falls within your technical means.  Maybe one play has heavy set demands, which might mean you have to scrimp on costumes.  Make sure they understand this.  What if the play has a couple of roles with lots of lines and the other parts not so much?  A gentle reminder that ten actors can’t all get the three leads might be helpful here.  They need to take cast size and line counts into consideration so that you end up with a show that fits your program.

As you can see, creating an Awesome and Excellent Play Reading Committee is a fabulous way to strengthen your drama program, teaching useful pre-production skills that are rarely taught in schools.  (After all, chances are pretty good at least some of your students will direct plays themselves some day!)

At the very least, the kids on your committee will start to understand the work involved in the pre-production process, all while having fun and building a sense of responsibility in having to choose that perfect play.  Maybe they’ll even begin to appreciate the work you’ve been doing for years.  (We can dream, can’t we?)

And now that you’ve created the Awesome and Excellent Play Reading Committee, how about introducing The Amazing All Stars of Stage Mopping Club?  Or perhaps the all-inclusive Committee for Backstage Cleanliness?  Hey, it just might work.

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