Newsletter | Pioneer Drama

Begin with Theater Games

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:06:16 -0400

Icebreakers for First Rehearsals

You know what the first drama rehearsal, or maybe the first day of drama camp, is like. Some of the kids are unsure of themselves and covering that up with an attitude of indifference. Those who know each other are in animated little groups, isolating themselves from the rest. Cliques are forming in front of your eyes. Yikes! From this, you have to build an ensemble?!

I’ve learned not to start with openings like, “Tell us who you are and why you’re here.” You’re just inviting trouble if you go there! “To get away from my little brother.” “My mom made me.” Or the worst: “I don’t know.” Not exactly a rousing start! Instead, when working with upper elementary, middle school and high school actors, I begin with theater games that build skills like listening, memorization and focus.

Even investing 20 minutes of time in the most basic theatre game, like the “Circle Alphabet Name Game,” is quite beneficial. By the end of this icebreaker, they will know each other’s names and be amazed at how quickly they were able to memorize twenty compound sentences just by listening and focusing on the task at hand, all while having a good laugh together. It’s a great way to start a drama class or rehearsal and lays the foundation for an ensemble of actors who work well together.

In case you’re not familiar with this particular memory game, read on. Say you have twenty kids in a circle. Have the person on your right start off by saying her name, “My name is Alice” and then add something she likes that begins with the same letter as her first name. So it’s “My name is Alice and I like apples.” The person to the right of Alice repeats Alice’s information before adding in his or her own: “Her name is Alice and she likes apples. My name is Drew and I like dogs.” It goes around the entire circle like this with each person repeating all previous information before adding their own, so by the end, they will have 19 names and nouns to recite in addition to their own. By the time it gets to person five, the listening becomes intense. They’ll want to help each other… the beginnings of an ensemble. I often play Round Two of this game in reverse order, so now Alice, who had the easiest time of it the first round, now has the hardest part. For Round Two I ask them to think of something different they like, not the first thing that comes to their minds but something unusual, which will be more memorable. It’s a great icebreaker to laugh together when Alice likes Albania and Drew shares his fondness for the Dewey Decimal System or his duodenum!

Don’t Believe the Type!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:41:19 -0400

A director can easily alter the subtle messages in a play by avoiding typecasting, another way of breaking stereotypes.

We all know that fairy tales are loaded with stereotypes, many of which introduce morals we don’t necessarily want to teach. For instance, in Disney’s Cinderella, the ugly stepsisters and the beautiful Cinderella reinforce the ridiculous notion that beauty is goodness; less pretty or plain is bad. Why would we want to teach that to our kids?!

Solution? Break these stereotypes and cast against type. My recent play, Cinderella! Cinderella! (just published by Pioneer Drama Service), features a plain Cinderella whose feet are so big, they would’ve broken the traditional tiny glass slipper into shards, and her two petite, gorgeous stepsisters. Presenting a plain Cinderella and beautiful stepsisters clarifies an important dimension to the moral: the play clearly becomes about kindness and goodness winning out, regardless of physical appearance.

Beyond fairy tales, a director can easily alter the subtle messages in a play by avoiding typecasting, another way of breaking stereotypes. In a boy meets girl story, why can’t the girl be taller? Overweight? Wear glasses? Not every hero has to be a candidate for a romance novel cover. And yes, villains can be beautiful, fair-haired girls.

Changing the gender of characters can also be seen as a way of casting against type. If you’re reading a script for possible production, and it doesn’t quite fit the boy/girl ratio you need, look at it again. See if the single king could be a queen, or if the teachers or witches could be boys. If the character has no romantic entanglements, then pirates, butchers, butlers, sheriffs and bullies can all be cast with girls—not with girls playing boys, but with girls simply acting their parts as if it were written for them. Chances are you’ll be able to fit your casting needs better while also avoiding reinforcing unintended stereotypes.

But before making any changes, be severely cautioned: It is NEVER safe to assume you have permission to make alterations to a script. Pioneer Drama Service is very flexible about this and easily approves making small changes such as gender switching. But be forewarned that it is against federal copyright law to change the gender of a character without first obtaining permission from the copyright holder unless the script specifically invites you to do so.

So talk to your publisher (Pioneer really is the easiest to work with regarding this) and have fun seeing how a gender change impacts a play’s message. Why couldn’t a Fairy Godmother be played by a male—not a male pretending to be a female, but a Fairy Godfather? I did it this way once, and it gave a whole new look to a very old fairy tale. And it certainly doesn’t have to be Marlon Brando’s “Godfather,” but perhaps a befuddled older man as I did or an earnest young man so eager to please he makes mistakes.

The next time you’re casting a play, don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Cast against type, break stereotypes and see what wonderful new messages or lessons come to the surface.

Children’s Theatre – Not Just Child’s Play

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:11:49 -0400

Cinderella! Cinderella! touches the hearts and funny bones of all ages

I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Edith Weiss’s Cinderella! Cinderella!, recently published by Pioneer Drama Service, at the Littleton Town Hall Arts Center. Among a sea of little girls wearing sparkling princess gowns and tiaras, I felt underdressed and overly large. But I soon blended right in with the young crowd, giggling and even laughing out loud along with the children. The humor woven into Edith’s skillfully-written manuscript leapt to life from the first moment when the town crier, Master Harold the Herald, competes with the old lady hawking cabbage balls.

At a time when the news is swarming with political drama, economic woes and other serious matters, this kind of quality children’s theatre is just the thing to encourage even big kids like me to forget toil and troubles of the world and just enjoy the purest form of light-hearted fun. The acting troupe (Kristianne Seaton, Jeremy Make, Doug Rosen, Robin Wallace, Meghan McMahon, Laurie Gabriel, Johnny Schroeder, Michelle Paul and Director Pam Clifton) filled the show with non-stop slapstick shenanigans—from Cinderella’s cat Tom’s tripping up the stuffy (and allergic!) ladies, to the stepsisters’ desperate and fake fainting spells, to the fairy godmother’s spells gone awry and the stepsisters’ much deserved pies in the face. The prince wasn’t the only one who had a ball, you could say.

In addition to the action-packed fun, the play also explores the meaning of true friendship through Tom Cat and Cinderella’s loyalty and affection (adorably, Tom can’t help but cry whenever Cinderella does), the fairy godmother’s tough love (she refuses to use her magic when Cinderella must learn on her own), and the compassionate prince’s sincere connection with the kind yet plain Cinderella. The reversal in the play (gorgeous stepsisters and an ordinary Cinderella) highlights a new moral to the age-old story: it’s not how you look or what your wear that matter; it’s the joy in your heart and how you treat others—and yourself—that are key to finding true happiness. Bravo to the talented Edith Weiss, the keen Pam Clifton and the vibrant crew of actors for demonstrating the timeless lesson that it’s what’s inside that counts!

-- Kristin Ettinger, Editor

Pioneer Drama Service

Rehearsals: Going from Chaos to Constructive

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:34:08 -0400

The first time I directed teenagers, I was all open heart, friendship, and good intentions. Rehearsals were going to be fun, and we were all going to be best friends forever… or at least until the show closed. Surprise, it didn’t work out that way!

Under my too-gentle tutelage, I watched rehearsals erode into Cirque du Chaos. I had left the room momentarily and upon returning found a student whooping and swinging from a light fixture in the ceiling—literally, egged on by others. Until that moment, I thought that only happened in the movies by characters named Tarzan or Pirate One Eye! In corners of the room sat other actors, slightly traumatized and wishing they had gone out for sports. They were certainly not learning what they could have been had I been a tougher director.

It was then I decided that I would always follow the protocol of professional theater. My opening line at the first rehearsal is, “Ladies and Gentlemen, theater is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship. I’m the dictator.” I am unsmiling when I say this, by the way. Then, I lay out the rules, the same ones that they will follow if they go into theater as a profession. I start with this rule, which is the most effective way I’ve found to get teens out of their cliques and able to form an ensemble: actors are NEVER to criticize, make suggestions or give unsolicited advice to another actor. Any creative suggestions you might have should be used for your own character, not someone else’s.

Teenagers love to point out how someone else could do better. I tell them if they have a problem with another actor or a suggestion for them, they should bring it to me privately. In the professional theater, it’s absolutely taboo for an actor to complain about or critique another actor. The hierarchy is there for a reason: everyone can play good cop, but only the director should play bad cop. You want the kids to form a cohesive ensemble built on trust so that they’re willing to take risks with their characters.

The next time you are working with teenage actors, if you, the director, start by instilling this discipline from the beginning, chances are you’ll soon be able to lighten up, have fun and direct the best possible show you can get out of your kids.

HUMBLING THE PLAYWRIGHT

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:24:04 -0500

Never Hesitate to Drop a Line to the Playwright!

I’ve been writing, directing, and acting in children’s and youth theater for a long time. Okay, a very long time. If you’ve been doing something for a long time (okay, an extremely long time) and people keep paying you to do it, chances are that you are good at it and know what you’re doing. You might even start to feel good about yourself. Your plays are being done all over the country, and sometimes even overseas, and you start to congratulate yourself, “Hey, I’m pretty darn good at what I do. I’m so lucky to be doing what I love.”

I love getting letters from students who have done one of my plays in their school. Among the “congratulations,” “thank you” and “loved it” letters lurk others from the future theater critics of America. As you read their comments, you start to hear the slow soft whoosh of the air being let out of your celebratory balloon. If it weren’t for the fact that I have worked with so many kids, and raised two of my own, I wouldn’t find these letters so funny. Plus, I, too, was once a young teen who knew everything better than anyone. Directors and drama teachers, this is the attitude that comes with being older than a 5^th grader, smarter than Aristotle, and not yet in high school. You deal with it every day. I salute you.

Now please read and enjoy excerpts from some of the favorite letters I’ve received from young actors. Names of students and schools are withheld to protect the innocent from their youthful arrogance.

“Edith Weiss, Out of all the plays we could have chosen from to perform for our school, we choose (sic) your wonderful play. This was a very good beginner play, and I am sure that you will grow into a much better writer in time.”

“Dear Edith Weiss, This was a very entertaining play which made the audience laugh. All the cast enjoyed performing this play as well. This was the first play I have ever acted in. I loved this play but felt it could have been better.”

“Dear Edith Wises (sic), We had the privilege to recreate your wonderful play. I hope we get to perform more of your marvelous plays. They are beautiful. (and the very next sentence from this 8^th grader reads…) I thought that your play was very good but it was a little boring. I didn’t think that the play was very funny but it had a good story line. I hope that my critique will help you make great plays.

USING COSTUMES TO HELP CREATE CHARACTER

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:38:00 -0500

Insights to Costuming Young Actors by Edith Weiss--Professional Director

Often the first question a young actor has is: “What’s my costume going to look like?” It’s important to them, but a costume should do more than just make an actress feel pretty or an actor feel cool; it should define character and enable an actor to add action to his role. Both the performance and the young actors will benefit from paying attention to what a costume can do to help a performance. I think I can describe it best by giving some examples:

In an adaptation of the Emperor’s New Clothes, I was having trouble getting the actor playing the king to put any energy into his movements. To show his vanity, he was wearing a large wig with sausage curls, and I told him every time he moved he had to make those curls bounce up and down. The laughter of the other actors when he did this gave him the impetus he needed to create a physically hilarious character. The wig helped him look like he was flying apart in his mad quest for clothes, even as his kingdom fell apart around him.

In the same show, I told an actress to pretend that her apron was the king’s neck. As she got more frustrated through the course of the play, she could show us her desire to wring his neck by taking it out on her apron. So although she, as a maid, couldn’t be anything but subservient to the king, her inner thoughts were obvious in how she twisted, wrung and stretched the apron. When actors have actions such as these to perform, they lose the stiffness and timidity that is the curse of the young actor.

Tricks for the Director’s Pocket

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:43:34 -0500

Have fun coming up with your own ideas for how to use pockets and other details of costume design to enhance your play’s characters, and break a leg!

Look at these lyrics by Paul Simon from his album “Graceland”:

She's a rich girl
She don't try to hide it
Diamonds on the soles of her shoes

He's a poor boy
Empty as a pocket
Empty as a pocket with nothing to lose

With two bits of characters’ clothes, we understand a lot about these people. That is what a good theater costume should do. Take pockets, for instance. As an actor or director, I love working with pockets in a costume.

Tissues stuffed into pockets come in handy for a weepy character. They’re also good for surreptitious dusting for a meticulous person or can be littered about the room for a sloppy person. It may not be in the script, but when added, it delineates character while giving the actors something to do. When I directed the children’s play Miss Nelson is Missing, the costume designer sewed deep diagonal pockets into Miss Nelson’s costume. I had Miss Nelson take peashooters and other things from the students, and as soon as her back was turned the kids slid them right out of her pockets again. It showed the kids winning the battle of classroom control, and it was funny.

In a large cast play, young actors sometimes need help maintaining their character and focus when they are just listening, not speaking. In my mystery-comedy play Dress Rehearsal for Murder (see link below, thank you very much), I had the actor playing Ronald Fitz-Charlton, a wealthy real estate magnate, put his hands deep in his pockets, and when he withdrew them, dollar bills would fall out. This showed his wealth and also showed a lot about the other characters—revealing who would pick them up and return them and who would quietly stash the bills on their own person. Another character recently into mysticism, Mrs. Peabody, had various amulets and a rabbit’s foot in her pockets that she used to reassure herself when things got scary. There aren’t any lines to support this stage business; it’s just a nice bit. It teaches actors that it isn’t about the number of lines you have; it’s what you do with your stage time.

Have fun coming up with your own ideas for how to use pockets and other details of costume design to enhance your play’s characters, and break a leg!

BREAKING THROUGH THE COOL, GETTING TO COMEDY

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:54:28 -0500

You’ve heard the saying: “Dying is hard. Comedy is harder.”

“To be cool” is the mantra of many teenagers. The monotone, the lack of obvious emotion, the whole tendency towards the laid-back slacker attitude—it’s all the antithesis of comedy. Getting middle school and high school students to break through the cool and act is one of the most difficult things for a director to do.

When I teach or direct teenagers, I put it to them up front at the first rehearsal or class: “If you’re here to be cool, you’re in the wrong place. If you can play the fool without feeling foolish, you’ll begin to understand the essence of comedic acting.” I point out Jim Carey movies and how over the top he goes, or Saturday Night Live, where actors who “go for it” are the ones who get the most laughs.

Of course, this isn’t enough. In middle school and high school, and especially with beginning actors, their self-consciousness and fear of looking foolish paralyze them. Here is a technique I’ve used in rehearsal that made a big difference in helping them shed their self-consciousness:

Once they are off book, after they’ve had a few runs and they really know the play, have them do a run of the show at double time. Keep urging them to pick up the speed, to go faster and faster but keep all the lines and blocking intact, and suddenly they feel what it’s like to have fun with the lines. Their need to be cool, their inhibitions and their self-consciousness go out the window in their attempt to speed through the run. There will be lots of laughs, and they will find new bits of acting and character. Often, they’ll find what the actual pace of the play should be! They will learn organically that a slow pace kills comedy—and if they’re not having fun, chances are the audience isn't either.

Besides writing for the theatre, Edith Weiss also acts and directs in both children's and adult theatre.

Budgeting a Musical

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:15:03 -0500

It is possible to stage an enjoyable musical, whether you are working on the tiniest of budgets or with buckets of money.

FROM STAGING MUSICALS FOR YOUNG PERFORMERS

By Maria C. Novelly and Adele Firth

ã MMIV Meriwether Publishing Ltd.

Used By Permission

You can spend as much or as little as you like, make the show technically as complex or as simple as you prefer. The music, the lyrics, the dialog, the pathos, the comedy, and ultimately the energy of the performance are the heart and life of a musical. Scenery, lighting, costumes and special effects are secondary.

Inspiring comments aside, you do need a fairly precise idea of how much your vision of the show will cost. This will then give you an idea of how much money you must commit yourself to raising if you don’t already have such sums on hand. Your main costs will be licensing fees and/or royalties, which are determined by the license holder; additional help for the show, which depends on the show and how comfortable you are taking on certain roles and the cost of additional help; and production costs, over which you have quite a bit of control.

Pioneer Drama Service Musicals vs. Broadway Musicals

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:51:57 -0500

We have heard countless customers rave about how much they love us for their musical needs.

Not only do we have remarkable customer service, our theatrical materials are more affordable and accessible to schools looking for quality plays and musicals on a budget. The benefits of getting musicals from Pioneer are many:

1. You BUY production orders, NOT RENT. This way, you don’t have to send any materials back. All of the scripts, scores and CDs are yours to keep so your cast can make notes and keep their scripts as souvenirs of a great experience.

2. We give permission for you to burn as many copies of our CD-set as you need for rehearsal purposes.

3. We strive to make the vocal range of our musicals accessible for most young thespians’ voices.

4. The ensemble nature of our casts allows every cast member a time in the spotlight.

5. We know our customers love large-cast shows so they can involve as many kids as there are in the school drama or theatre program. The more kids in the cast, the more family and friends attend the show!

6. Because big casts make for big audiences, our musicals are often praised as successful school fundraisers.

If Broadway has broken your budget and you’re looking for a quality alternative, look no further. Check out our awesome search engine to find out which Pioneer Drama musical meets your specific needs and desires.

The Life Cycle of an Order

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:40:51 -0500

Many companies have automated systems for answering the phone, processing orders, running credit cards, etc. Not Pioneer Drama.

You can rest assured that each and every order is processed individually by a human being, whether it’s by phone, fax, mail or online. When you place an order for theatrical materials through our online shopping cart, a customer service representative goes to the website, prints off the order, and enters the information into our database. Then the order is sent back to our warehouse, where the materials are pulled from shelves, processed for either U.S. mail or FedEx, then placed in a cubby hole as the order form is sent back for billing. Once another friendly human being enters the information and generates invoices for the day, we run a check for errors, run credit cards one by one, then check each order form against the invoice for accuracy. From there, the order form is paired with invoice and sent back to the warehouse. Finally, the order is checked one more time to make sure the material pulled from the shelves matches what is listed on the order form. Then a team of more friendly human beings boxes up the material and hands it off to the Postal Service or FedEx, who ship it to your doorstep! Daily cut-off for orders is 11 AM Mountain Time to ensure every order placed that day and the previous afternoon is complete, accurate and out the door in a timely fashion.

Got stage action? -- Submitting a play for publication

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:18:36 -0500

An editor gives an inside scoop on what she looks for!

Your school couldn’t find a play that would work for your drama club this year, so you wrote a script for them. The performances went off without a hitch, and you received a standing ovation from the audience. Now what?

You could shove the script with all of your handwritten notes in a drawer and say, “Someday I’ll get to this, clean it up and try to get it published.” Or, you could take the time now to get it ready for submission, while all of those little things that came up during rehearsal are still fresh in your mind.

As an editor, one of the hardest parts of reading play submissions is reviewing the “incomplete” script—that is, a script with few or vague stage directions. When writing and staging a play that you plan to submit for publication, make sure what you create onstage makes it into the actual script so that your expertise can be recreated by future directors. Of course, a play script is not meant to be read as a novel would, and too much detail could bog it down. However, the right amount of stage directions conveys action to the reader and brings the play to life, making it more enjoyable to read and easier to envision for editors and directors alike.

As you’re writing or polishing up your script, keep in mind Pioneer Drama Service as a possible publisher for your work. We look for family-friendly, large-cast comedies with ensemble casts (where everyone has a chance to shine, not just a few lines), more female roles than male, simple set requirements (with few set changes or area staging), few technical requirements, lots of stage action (write it in!) and sub-plots, and content appealing to a 6th-grade level and up.

Plays for Black History Month

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:27:49 -0500

Now as ever, it is important to keep the impetus of Dr. Woodson in mind while looking for tools to enlighten our youth and keep the vision intact for all of us

We owe the celebration of Black History Month, and more importantly, the study of black history, to Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Whilst earning his Ph.D. from Harvard, the scholar was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the black American population - and when blacks did figure into the picture, it was generally in ways that reflected the inferior social position they were assigned at the time.

Now as ever, it is important to keep the impetus of Dr. Woodson in mind while looking for tools to enlighten our youth and keep the vision intact for all of us. Pioneer Drama Service offers both plays and texts with material to be performed on stage or taught in a classroom setting.

Some of our plays related to Black History Month include:

Anansi the Spider and the Middle Passage – Frank Higgins

“An imaginative re-telling of the Anansi folktales put into a new context as the tales come to America on a slave ship…Wonderfully theatrical.”
~Omaha World-Herald

Peanutman: A Visit from George Washington Carver – Frank Higgins

This entertaining biography emphasizes George Washington Carver's determination and curiosity while utilizing outstanding audience participation.

Tale of the Mouse – Anita Gustafson

This play consists of a series of classic African folk tales narrated and performed by actors using only masks to create a variety of characterizations.

A Land Beyond the River – Loften Mitchell

Based on the true story of the integration movement in education, this play offers a look at the African-American's struggle for freedom in America.

Some of the following texts may have selections to suit your Black History Month needs:

Great Scenes from Minority Playwrights – Marsh Cassady (ed.)
Multicultural Folktales – Suzanne I. Barchers
Multicultural Theatre – Roger Ellis (ed.)
Plays of America from American Folklore – L.E. McCullogh

Any of the plays or texts listed above can be an instrumental piece in the celebration of Black History Month for your school or community. Either in the classroom or on the stage, these titles are sure to entertain as well as educate.

Incorporating Theatre Into the Elementary School Classroom

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:46:04 -0500

It spices up your curriculum while being interactive, multidisciplinary and just plain fun!

We’ve all watched as young children “played house” and marveled at their uninhibited ability to assume different roles. Kids love to pretend, so why wait for middle school or high school to introduce drama to kids? Incorporating theatre into your elementary school classroom spices up your curriculum while being interactive, multidisciplinary and just plain fun!

Pioneer Drama Service offers more than 25 books to help the elementary teacher utilize plays, sketches or other drama exercises in the classroom. Whether you’re looking for a way to introduce classic literature—including Shakespeare—to students, practice listening, speaking and memorization, develop reading expression and fluency, build teamwork and cooperation or simply get your kids up and moving in a creative fashion, drama might just be the answer for you!

You can fully engage your students and add a spark to your study of literature through the use of drama in the classroom. Dramatizing Myths and Tales, Dramatizing Aesop’s Fables and Plays from Mythology give you opportunities to involve every student in your classroom. Shakespearean literature comes alive for even young kids with the help of aids such as Starting with Shakespeare, Simply Shakespeare and Shakespeare for Kids. In Great Scenes and Monologues for Children Ages 7-14, elementary students and teachers will enjoy scenes from children’s classics such as “The Secret Garden,” “Little Women” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Monologues include such contemporary works as “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “Heidi” and “Peter Pan.”

Presenting monologues is an outstanding exercise to develop a student’s speaking and presentation skills as well as reinforcing the important skill of memorization. While presenting poetry also can achieve the same goals, children love the opportunity to develop characterizations and use more expression in their presentations. Pioneer Drama has a delightful trio of fun monologue books specifically for elementary students, with age appropriate topics, humor, language and sentence structure: Wild and Wacky, Cool Characters for Kids and My First Monologue Book.

Readers theatre—the oral expressive interpretation of a scripted piece of literature read in a dynamic, dramatic style—is an outstanding technique for encouraging vocabulary development, fluency and expression in all readers. Elementary educators across the country attest to the unbelievable joy that comes about when readers theatre is introduced into a library or classroom experience. Students benefit from readers theatre because they can see, hear and practice using English and developing their listening, reading and speaking fluency. It provides participants with a legitimate reason for rereading text in an enjoyable and engaging format. For first and second graders, we carry How and Why Stories for Readers Theatre and Mother Goose Readers Theatre for Beginning Readers. More advanced readers can develop their reading fluency and practice reading with expression with texts such as From the Page to the Stage, Just Deal With It, Multicultural Folktales and Don Quijote in America.

Theatre Games for Young Performers, Show Time! and On Stage are just three texts we carry that suggest many games, often including song and dance, to get your students active and moving while learning and building teamwork. These games foster creativity and emphasize following directions, listening, speaking, non-verbal communication, group dynamics and physical control.

After incorporating drama into your classroom by dramatizing stories, presenting monologues, performing readers theatre or simply playing theatre games, your kids will undoubtedly beg for the opportunity to put on a “real play.” Don’t panic! Not only do we have many scripts ideal for elementary students, but we have whole books dedicated to helping you through the entire process. On With the Show!, Kids Take the Stage and Anyone Can Produce Plays with Kids are all comprehensive books that will support, encourage and inspire you to help your students become stars. For the especially ambitious who want to tackle a musical, Staging Musical for Young Performers is just the ticket!

Whether you do a little or a lot, you’ll be thrilled to see what a positive impact introducing drama in the classroom has on your elementary students. Even more than all the learning objectives above, you’ll stand up and applaud when you observe the self-confidence they develop with the cooperative learning of theatre.

Ordering a school musical from Pioneer Drama Service

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:58:21 -0400

Ordering a school musical from Pioneer Drama Service is a completely different—and hopefully far better—experience than ordering a name show from one of those big New York companies.

Ordering a school musical from Pioneer Drama Service is a completely different—and hopefully far better—experience than ordering a name show from one of those big New York companies. This fact was brought home to us last week when a customer called in total frustration after trying to acquire the rights at her school to perform the latest popular school musical from Disney. Between the differences in price, the timeline restrictions, and the overall way she was treated, this high school drama teacher decided it was not worth working with that other play publishing company.

This teacher’s first eye-opening experience came with the price of the CD. Granted, at Pioneer Drama Service, we have to charge a steep $65 for the CD set—one CD with vocals and one just instrumental—to cover the pricy expense of the studio time to first create these recordings. However, $65 sounded like a bargain compared to the $500 the other publishing company wanted for the Disney show—and that was for a eight week rental! In addition, this teacher had to sign a damage/loss waiver agreeing to pay $2000 if the CD was damaged or lost during the rental period! At Pioneer Drama Service, our $65 comes with a lifetime guarantee. We’ll replace the CD if anything happens to it, even if the damage was caused by your own CD player!

Royalties for this school musical were also an issue. At Pioneer Drama Service, our royalties are fixed. This means we publish the cost of the royalty in our catalog ($90 for the first performance, $80 for each additional for a full length musical). Believing it is far better to allow you to budget for your school musical from the onset, we charge everyone the same price, whether you choose to charge an admission or not, whether you have a house of 200 or 600, whether you’ll be less than half capacity or standing room only. If you decide you need to add a dollar to your planned admission cost, it’s not going to change your royalties at all. Unfortunately, our poor customer did not fair so well with the New York company. Her school theatre is relatively small, seating only 300, yet she’s never had more than 150 people at a show. That didn’t matter to the publisher. They based their fees on her 300 seat house and charged her $125 per performance!

Pioneer Drama Service also differs from the New York companies because we have you purchase your musical scripts, rather than rent them. Going back to our unfortunate teacher, she was given an eight-week timeframe in which she could retain the scripts and music, after which she had to return them, unmarked and resellable. Our philosophy is completely different. Who are we to determine our customers’ rehearsal schedules?! We want you to decide for yourself how much time you’ll need. Is this tied into a semester long class? No problem! Is this going to take the better part of a year because it’s a club that only meets once a week? Again, no problem! You own the play scripts and are in total control.

Not only do we want you to be in control, we want your students to have ownership in their parts, which is why we sell you the scripts rather than renting them. Students have their own script that they can mark up, scribble blocking cues in, highlight… whatever they need to prepare for their part. Teachers also love this because their budget isn’t dependent on how a student treats his or her script. After all, we all know how papers look after being in a student’s locker for a month! Best of all, you don’t have to worry about having any erasing sessions and collecting the scripts to return!

The final straw for our frustrated customer was how she was treated. Face it, there’s nothing pleasant about working with a company that could care less whether they have your business or not. Perhaps it’s the luxury of representing the most produced school musical of last year that you can value your properties more than your customers. At Pioneer Drama Service, just the opposite is true—we value each and every one of our customers. It doesn’t matter if you are from a very small high school, a middle school, an elementary school or even a home school. We appreciate your interest in our material and want to make sure your experience with Pioneer Drama Service is a very positive one!

Newsletter | Pioneer Drama

Begin with Theater Games

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Don’t Believe the Type!

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Children’s Theatre – Not Just Child’s Play

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Rehearsals: Going from Chaos to Constructive

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HUMBLING THE PLAYWRIGHT

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USING COSTUMES TO HELP CREATE CHARACTER

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Tricks for the Director’s Pocket

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BREAKING THROUGH THE COOL, GETTING TO COMEDY

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Budgeting a Musical

By Maria C. Novelly and Adele Firth

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Pioneer Drama Service Musicals vs. Broadway Musicals

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The Life Cycle of an Order

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Got stage action? -- Submitting a play for publication

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Plays for Black History Month

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Incorporating Theatre Into the Elementary School Classroom

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Ordering a school musical from Pioneer Drama Service

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