Have a flair for drama? Put on a play or skit with these free scripts and staging ideas in these short plays in English for children.
Acting Scripts for Kids
Children will enjoy these royalty-free English plays, skits, dramatic readings and pageants which are arranged according to difficulty. The activities help kids build confidence, followed by skit ideas for kids that require little or no rehearsal and are often quite funny. Readings take fewer people and some rehearsal, while plays require lots of people and lots of rehearsal. Near the end of this page, you’ll find a few plays for advanced actors or for older teens because of the nature of the topic of the scripts such as Shakespeare plays. There is a section for Christmas plays and one site with a lot of Christian scripts. At the very end you’ll find help with staging and costumes.
Activities
Selected Self-Confidence Building Activities
It matters not whether you have the good looks of a crumbling cathedral gargoyle or the sex appeal of a rusted cheese grater because self-confidence is a power greater than the sum of your parts.
Advice for Homeschoolers on Producing Plays
Making the most interesting choice at a casting
More often than not the director will want to work with the actor who makes the interesting choices because these are the choices which will pop on camera. The only directors who will want to work with actors who make the safe choices are amateurs, students, and corporate filmmakers.
Skits for Kids
Camp Skits
Most of the skits listed here require minimal preparation, and can be easily adapted to accommodate groups of all sizes.
Cinderella
7 characters. Author: Brothers Grimm.
Little Orphan Annie
Annie :(Reading a paper) “Please take good care of our little darling. Her name is Annie. She was born….”
July : Was born on October 28.
Orphans : We will be back to get her soon. We have left half of a silver locket around her neck and keep the other half, so that when we come back for her, you will know that she’s our baby! (laughing)
Chants & Cheers
Perfect for camp spirit!
50 Skits for Kids
50 royalty-free skits for kids and teens. Use this collection of short, funny skits in class with your students, or in a school performance. 2 person skits, and whole group skits.
Readings
Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”
Complete script for a dramatic reading for two people. Sound file, too, so you can learn to get the timing right.
Generic Radio Workshop
Online repository of scripts from the Golden Age of Radio: the original and largest collection of radio transcripts on the World Wide Web.
Best Dinosaur Jokes Comedy Routine Ever!
This set of dinosaur jokes comedy routine could be read by two kids or a kid and an adult as a skit for a children’s group. By Ann Zeise.
Readers’ Theater
Aaron’s scripts for small groups of actors about 3rd-9th grade.
Free Plays for Middle School-aged Kids
The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.
Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places. Publication Date: July 31, 2016. Kindle Edition
Child Labor Script—You are the Judge
Mr.Donald: I do not have evidence but you guys don’t as well! Try and prove yourself!
Sakura: Evidence? I have evidence. One is this picture. (Get some picture out)
Classic Movie Scripts
Scripts and Transcripts to Classic Movies (and others) made before 1970. Culled from various sources on the internet.
Kidsinco Complete List of Playscripts
We have more than 400 scripts. Click Here to Read Playscripts in Spanish.
The Land of Lost Stories
The story is about technology preventing kids from reading classic children’s stories, so the story characters are discarded onto an island where they long to return to the “hearts and minds” of kids. The songs and the characters from well-known books are not royalty-free, though most are in the public domain.
Little Women
Written by Greta Gerwig. Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott
Peter Pan
By J. M. Barrie. The cuckoo clock strikes six, and Nana springs into life.This first moment in the play is tremendously important, for if the actor playing Nana does not spring properly we are undone.
Plays
This drama magazine for young people offers something for everyone. New plays monthly, with a huge archive of royalty free plays for children. Scripts in PDF format.
The Princess Bride
Does it got any sports in it? Are you kidding? It’s got fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, True Love, miracles and more!
Rinse the Blood off My Toga
My name is Flavius Maximus, Private Roman Eye. Licence number MCMLXXVIII. It also comes in handy as an eye chart. I’m gonna tell ya about the Julius Caesar Caper. It all began during the Ides of March. I had just nailed Sutoniuos the Gladiator, he had a crooked lion who kept takin a dive. Anyhow, I was just beginning to rest on my laurels when suddenly… HE burst in to my office.
Sasha and the Pearl
Fairy tale-style script that can be adapted to puppet theater featuring a princess, a witch, a lobster king and other assorted characters.
Yuuki & the Tsunami
A Japanese legend. With quick thinking, a boy saves the lives of 400 villagers from a sudden and deadly tsunami.
Advanced Scripts – Including Shakespeare – for Teenagers and Mature Actors
Folk Play Research Home Page
English folk plays, often called Mummers’ Plays, are short traditional verse sketches performed at Christmas, Easter and other annual festivals and taken round pubs and private houses.
The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian
By Lord Alfred Tennyson. Complete script for those who would like to do an olde English play.
Hamilton
While not the full script, this site has all the songs to listen to and the lyrics, so you can sing along. Atlantic Records has the rights. Ask them about performance issues. Clean edition.
The Oxford Shakespeare
You could layout the plays as you like it, illustrate, have scripts for everyone, and all’s well that ends well. From Bartleby.com.
Saint Joan
By George Bernard Shaw. Consider the career of Joan. She was a village girl, in authority over sheep and pigs, dogs and chickens, and to some extent over her father’s hired laborers when he hired any, but over no one else on earth. Outside the farm she had no authority, no prestige, no claim to the smallest deference. Yet she ordered everybody about, from her uncle to the king, the archbishop, and the military General Staff.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” More episodes under “S” in this alphabetically list of screen plays.
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Beckett. The basic plot revolves around two characters who have been told they must wait for Godot, though they aren’t sure who he is or what he looks like. Many opportunities come their way, but they turn them down because they might miss Godot.
Wizard Of Oz – Original Script
Everybody’s cherished favorite, perennial fantasy film musical from MGM during its golden years. Many more screenplays, movie scripts and transcripts organized alphabetically.
Christian Plays
The Baker’s Dozen
A Saint Nicholas Tale, Told by Aaron Shepard. In the Dutch colonial town later known as Albany, New York, there lived a baker, Van Amsterdam, who was as honest as he could be.
The Birth of Jesus
Your basic Luke 2 nativity skit, nicely formated for young actors.
Christmas Around the World – a Christmas Play
A simple Christmas pagent with lots of built-in flexibility so it could be performed by a family or a large group.
A Christmas Carol
The visiting spirits of Christmas force Scrooge to confront people and scenes from his life that remind him of his friendlessness – he even sees his home and his future corpse being rifled by his own servants. Finally, he awakens to the reality of Christmas morning and discovers the joy of giving, loving, and caring for others.
Christmas Skit
Divide the group into four smaller groups and assign each group one of the words listed here. Read the story. After each of the words is read pause for the group to sing the first line of the song.
The War Prayer
By Mark Twain. You have heard your minister pray, “Grant us victory, O Lord our God.” The Lord too has heard this prayer, and He will grant it-if such is your desire. But first I am commanded to explain to you its full meaning. For it is not one prayer, but two — one spoken, the other not. Listen now to the silent prayer.
Staging
Fake Blood Recipes
Here are some recipes for you to make your own realistic-looking fake blood. Real blood is reddish brown so you may need to alter the amounts of ingredients for the desired affect. Keep in mind, fake blood is messy and some of these recipes may leave stains, so use with caution and allow plenty of time for drying.
The History of Costume
These plates consisted of historical dress from antiquity to the end of the 19th century. This complete online book is an excellent source for students who are studying the history of fashion and for costume designers. By Braun & Schneider – c.1861-1880.
