Children's Theatre Plays

35 pages

6 m, 8 w.

In this fast-paced “green” adaptation Jack and his mother are really poor now that the forest has been cut down. Sadly, all that’s left is for them to sell their cow, Milky White. (All Milky White can say is “moo” but her moos are extremely expressive!) Jack trades her for magic beans and by the next morning, the beanstalks have grown out of sight into the sky. Jack climbs up and enters into the castle of the Giant and his wife, Giganta. Ultimately Jack rescues a hen that lays golden eggs, a magic harp, and even more importantly, tree seedlings which will hel...

56 pages

Flexible cast: 9-30 actors.

Gather ‘round, friends. Here are four Appalachian folktales your audiences will love … and your actors will love performing, too! Our favorite folk hero, Jack, appears in all four stories: “Jack’s Mother’s Second Marriage,” “Jack and the Mean Old Man,” “Foolish Jack,” and “Soldier Jack.” All four tales are fast paced and humorous, and still hold true to the oral traditions of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In fact, playwright R. Rex Stephenson gathered some of the material from the archives of the WPA Virginia Writer’s Project and some tales from interviews with l...

37 pages

Flexible cast of 10

From the story "Kaa's Hunting" by Rudyard Kipling.  Deep in a jungle in India in the middle of the 19th century a tribe of monkeys come chasing in with the boy Mowgli in their midst. In the middle of their play, Kaa, the great python, terrifies them as well as Baloo, a great bear, and Bagheera, a panther, who are Mowgli's friends and protectors. Once out of harm's way, the two scold the boy and teach him how to make himself safe in the jungle. They fall asleep. The monkeys, eager to get Mowgli to make them huts like his, wake him and drag him off. Baloo and B...

29 pages

6 m, 9 w, 12 flexible characters

Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm have been in competition for over 200 years and the friction between them doesn't seem to be abating. When Mother Goose takes off on vacation leaving Simple Simon in charge, the Goose employees go on strike. The only way Simon can bring them back to work and get the company out of the red is to agree to appear on a fairy-tale TV special with the Brothers Grimm employees. They, however, plan to sabotage the presentation on the live broadcast, destroying Mother Goose's company once and for all! But Mother Goose finds a way to...

26 pages

Flexible cast

These four plays are ideal for young actors in school, for children's theatre groups, or even for summer camp talent shows. With plenty of rhyming and choral recitation, they can be presented easily with only a few rehearsals. Though each requires strong leading characters, any number of children can participate. Included with each piece are suggestions for simple staging, but feel free to use your own creative ideas. 30-40 minutes. Each play is 7-10 minutes long. 

"Lost in the Forest...

49 pages

2 m, 2 w, 7 flexible parts, doubling possible

The characters in this version of Pinocchio are guaranteed to delight everyone. They include Pinocchio, an innocent kid who believes anything; three irrepressible urchins, Zip, Petey, and Dew "Duh"; the Fox and Cat, a comical pair of con artists; and the Blue Fairy, a grandmotherly type who keeps coughing whenever she emerges from a puff of smoke. Easy sets, easy to tour. About 50 minutes. 

41 pages

3 m, 2 w, 2 flex

Attention, new recruits! Fairytale City is in trouble because of a wolf named Big Bad, who wants to get his hands on a magic porridge that will make him invincible! Billings, a master of disguise who runs the Special Agent Unit, needs your help! Meanwhile, Mama Bear, the Porridge Maker, and Papa Bear, the Porridge Keeper, are having a hard time getting Baby Bear, a bratty toddler, to eat the porridge and become the Porridge Heir, which would keep Fairytale City safe. While Big Bad plots to steal the porridge from the Three Bears, Billings calls in his secret ...

48 pages

with doubling 4 m, 4 w

A humorous urban romp through familiar tales by the Brothers Grimm. Everybody is having a bad day in the Enchanted City. Little Theodore Hood's grandmother is gravely ill and he must get a powerful medicine to her as soon as possible. But Theodore's grandmother lives on the other side of the Enchanted City and the sinister Stranger will stop at nothing to get his hands on the medicine. Meanwhile a young lady names Summer Greene has recently inherited a large fortune, making her the wealthiest person in the Enchanted City. Summer's wicked stepmother, Bertha, w...

35 pages

8 m, 7 w

What happens in a toy store after hours? The dolls come alive in a world filled with comedy and adventure. Meet totally clueless Pretty Hair Melinda, and her pals, Beach Buff Ben and Surfer Sam. There's also streetwise Jewel and playboy millionaire doll, Mike, who is really secret agent, James Pond, 007. Raggedy Freddy and Franny, lovable and mischievous, tangle with the grumpy and sarcastic Teddy Bear and have to run for their lives. When a group of the dolls venture over to aisle 10 for a little excitement, they accidentally unleash the Bionic Warrior doll....

29 pages

3 m, 5 w

Two good but somewhat ditzy fairy sprites, Flora and Fauna, are having a delightful time at a gathering for the royals' new baby, Princess Aurora, when - you guessed it - the evil fairy Maleficent crashes the party! Irritated at not being invited, as well as for generally evil principles, Maleficent places a curse on the beautiful child: when Aurora turns 16, she will cut her finger on a spinning wheel and the whole kingdom will fall asleep, never to awaken. Later, Prince Charming breaks the curse by kissing the lovely Princess awake in spite of warnings from...

16 pages

11 m, 6 w

In this farce, a narrator helps the action and humor even to the point of shooting the good queen, who doesn't want to die after Snow White is born. The evil queen can't make up a rhyme that's worth a darn before the magic mirror, and she even forgets her apples are poisonous and eats one at the wedding of the Prince and Snow. About 25 minutes.

73 pages

8 m, 16 w, 5 flexible

King Barney and Queen Rose suffer from a terrible jinx. Rose's sister, Jean, who wants to be queen herself, has cursed them with an "ugly duckling." Their oldest child, Dora, is as spoiled a brat as the kingdom has ever known. Desperate for help, the Queen calls on Magdelia, the witch who taught Jean everything she knows. Magdelia has only one antidote: some unlucky fellow must fall in love with Dora. A matchmaker suggests Bodkin, a simple woodcutter, who longs to marry. Dora is kidnapped and sent to Bodkin, who begins to slowly chip away at her nasty persona...

23 pages

6 m, 8 w

Christine's in big trouble. Her mother warns her not to open the old book of fairy tales, but Christine breaks the rules and opens it anyway. Now the pages are strewn across the stage. The book just happens to be magic, and the characters from the stories inside soon appear in Christine's family room. Chaos ensues as Cinderella kisses the Frog Prince, and the evil Queen from Snow White falls in love with Rumpelstiltskin. Hansel and Gretel are eating the aluminum siding off the house, and the Miller's Daughter convinces Rumpelstiltskin not to kidnap her baby, ...

37 pages

Cast of 20 or more, doubling possible

Lots of small, easily learned roles plus narrators make this 45-minute version of the story of Aladdin a breeze to rehearse and tour. The sultan wants to marry off his four beautiful daughters to neighboring princes and when the daughters object, he sends them on a journey. Ali Baba and his band of thieves kidnap the daughters to get a king's ransom, but luckily Aladdin, a poor young man, comes to the rescue. With a little help from the Genies of the Lamp and Ring, Aladdin saves the day. Simple staging yet lots of action and adventure to enchant children's au...

77 pages

11 to 25+

A perfect resource book for producing plays in your grade school or junior high classroom. All of the plays have 11 to 25+ roles which are mostly flexible in gender to include as many students as possible. The plays have interesting plots and short, easy-to-learn lines. Your student actors will have fun developing and portraying the varied characters. Titles in Vol. II include: “Cabin Calamity,” in which two families with twins vacationing together in the woods come under suspicion. In “Diner’s Delight,” a couple of bumbling thieves try to holdup a diner. In ...