Anchor Standard #5: Develop and refine artistic work

for presentation.
Theatre artists develop personal processes and skills for a performance or design.
This book is an especially great resource for
performers dabbling in text and character
analysis during scene work in class or work
on a school play. It provides guidance for
what actors can do while they are pursuing
acting objectives onstage, so that they can
always know what their characters want and
how they will try to get it. It is also great for
building students vocabulary skills!

Caldarone, M., & Lloyd-Williams, M. (2004). Actions: The Actors' Thesaurus. Brooklyn
Heights, NY: Drama Publishers, 2004.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 76
Readability: 5th Grade and Up

Suitability: 6th Grade and Up

This book is a very interesting resource to have in a
classroom for both students and teacher. It tackles
many topics around diversity, the concept of ability,
and how theatre is used to continue a conversation
about such issues. It also addresses the responsibility
that theatrical performers and practitioners have to the
audiences for whom they perform. The topics
discussed in the book are applicable to classes of
every ability and age and thus useful to any teacher,
but students who wish to read the book itself need to
be of a higher reading level themselves.

Grady, S. (2000). Drama and Diversity: A Pluralistic Perspective for Educational Drama.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, c2000.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 40
Readability: High School and Up

Suitability: High School and Up

This young adult novel tackles many difficult

but relevant topics for high schoolers such as
homosexuality, intimacy, relationships,
friendships, alcohol use, and many more. It is
about high schoolers, for high schoolers, and is
extremely relatable through the perspectives of
the two different Will Graysons and their
unique worldviews. It could also act as a
catalyst for exciting students about performing
and participating in theatre in school.

Green, J. & Levithan, D. (2010) Will Grayson, Will Grayson. New York, NY: Dutton.
Readability: 9th Grade

Suitability: High School

Flesch-Kincaid Score: 71.7

This book is an amazing and extremely fun resource

for classrooms of varying ages and abilities. The
plays included, though written with young
audiences in mind, are great for being performed by
actors of all ages. They are also short enough that it
could be possible for a theatre class to produce a
whole play during their section/semester. A
particularly fun use for this resource would be for a
group of older/advanced performers to work on one
of the plays included with the goal of performing it
for a group of younger students at their school or a
nearby school.

Jennings, C. e. (1998). Theatre for Young Audiences: 20 Great Plays for Children. United States
of America: St. Martin's Press.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 74
Readability: 5th Grade and Up

Suitability: 5th Grade and Up

Kristin Linklaters techniques for

connecting an actor to their voice and body
in order to free their ability to act
truthfully while honestly communicating
and expressing their own emotions are
useful to performers of all ability levels.
The step-by-step sequence of her activities
also make this a useful source for a teacher
desiring to structure a lesson unit on an
actors use of their voice as a performance
tool.

Linklater, K. (2006). Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Voice and
Language. London: Nick Hern, 2006.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 63.9
Readability: 6th Grade and Up

Suitability: 6th Grade and Up

Moses Sees a Play is a lovely and beautifully told

story, and the themes it presents are relevant to all agelevels. The initial exposure to American Sign
Language it allows through Moses' instructions on
how to sign words and phrases is such an interesting
way to inspire intrigue in someone who knows little to
nothing about Sign Language. The story's commentary
on friendship and communication, and how regardless
of language, we can find ways to communicate with
one another if we try, as well as the encouragement of
friendships across language, race, gender, culture, etc.,
make the book relatable to every class at nearly every
age level. My favorite aspect of the story was the way
that the author showed how watching theatre inspires
young people to try it out for themselves.
Millman, I. (2004). Moses Sees a Play. New York, NY: Frances Foster Books.
Readability: 2nd Grade
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 92.2

Suitability: 4 years and up

This play provides a great but feasible

challenge for actors beginning or continuing to
dabble with performing Shakespeare plays.
Analyzing and performing heightened language
is a particular skill for actors to develop, and it
is one that can definitely be taught and honed in
the classroom. Also, the fun story present in this
specific Shakespeare play is particularly useful
for exciting students about the idea of
performing Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, W., & McEachern, C. E. (2006). Much Ado about Nothing. London: Arden
Shakespeare, 2006.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 75
Readability: 6th Grade and Up

Suitability: 6th Grade and Up

Viola Spolin was revolutionary in coming up

with ways to use games to teach theatre
techniques to performers, and while her games
were especially applicable to teaching children,
her concepts and activities are beneficial to
theatrical scholars of all ages. The games in this
particular book of hers translate especially well to
teaching performance in the classroom, and are a
fun way to get students of all acting levels
involved and excited about performing.

Spolin, V. (1986). Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1986.
Readability:

5th Grade and Up

Flesch-Kincaid Score: 65.9

Suitability: 5th Grade and Up

Surviving the Applewhites is another fun

young adult novel excellent for inspiring
students about the fun of participating in
theatre, as well as for showing how theatre
can be used to help others and serve the
community. It is relatable to any student
who has ever felt ostracized or like they
dont belong, or in other words, every
student. It is also a good resource for
showing students the community aspect of
being involved in the theatre.

Tolan, S. S. (2002). Surviving the Applewhites. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Flesch-Kincaid Score: 74
Readability: 5th Grade and Up

Suitability: 5th Grade and Up

This anthology is an extremely beneficial resource

for the classroom because it contains so many plays
of varying contexts, time periods, and cultures for
students to read and reference, as well as useful
research and information about the plays themselves.
As well as the many plays, students get an exposure
to information on many different theatrical styles in
this book. As it is an extremely academic resource, it
would be most useful to students of higher class
levels, but a teacher could easily pull information and
play/scene selections from it for many ages.

Worthen, W. B. (2011). The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth
Cenage Learning.
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 20.9
Readability: High School and Up

Suitability: High School and Up