Teaching Drama: The Essential Handbooks is a brand new resource with 16 ready-to-go lessons plans that will transform the way you teach acting to kids! Whether you’re a new drama teacher looking for help laying out your first year, or an experienced teacher looking for refreshing new ideas, this resource will give you the tools you need to build your kids into incredible actors.

It contains a semester's worth of cumulative detailed lesson plans, notes on how to introduce basic acting concepts to kids, activities for both "younger" and "older" students, how to transition between activities and from lesson to lesson, and contemporary new games like a "Facebook Character Profile".

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

When I first started teaching theatre, I knew there were tons of resources out there, but none of them seemed to give me the practical advice I needed on a lesson by lesson basis. What were the specific “tricks” and “tools” I could use to go beyond “having fun” to actually building better actors?

Eventually I realized the thing that was most helpful to me was to watch other amazing teachers in action. Nothing could replace the experience of being in the classroom and seeing what worked and what didn’t.

This book is designed to recreate that experience. I’ve condensed 10 years of experience (with over 20,000 students in the NYC public school system) into 16 lessons of drama teaching gold. After you’ve read through all the lessons, you should feel like you’ve sat in on an entire semester of observing an expert drama teacher introduce the basics of drama to a classroom of students.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For nearly a decade DENVER CASADO has worked as an arts educator with New York City’s leading theatre organizations including Disney Theatricals, New York City Center and Young Audiences New York. Denver’s innovative approach to exploring theatre with kids has earned him invitations to speak at the national conferences of the American Association of Community Theatre and the American Alliance for Theatre Education. In 2011 he was honored with the All Stars Projects’ Phyllis Hyman award, in recognition of his important contribution to the creative growth and development of over 20,000 young people in the NYC public school system. Denver is a graduate of New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.

LESSONS OVERVIEW

Below are just a few of the topics covered in the lessons:

✓ 
What is Theatre? Students explore how theatre is the art of telling stories through live acting.

✓ Creating an Ensemble: Students learn to work together, build trust, and involve every member in a performance.

✓ Movement & Space: Students explore how pantomime and behavior can help tell a story.

✓ Character Development: Students explore what makes characters unique and how to create compelling characters onstage.

✓ Objective & Tactics: Students will think about the “why” behind every action.

✓ Using Your Voice: Students will understand the importance of articulation, projection and voice variation.

✓ Listening/Reacting.: Students will understand how listening and reacting are an important part of being an actor.

✓ Stage Directions and Blocking: Students will understand the “principles of blocking” and how to stage a scene without instruction.

A RESOURCE YOU CAN TRUST

✓ Since launching in April of 2011, Beat by Beat Press has helped hundreds of teachers in over 16 countries bring exciting new content to their communities.

✓ Over 800 people a day visit Beat by Beat’s website for high-quality drama resources, so rest assured the materials you’re receiving are top-notch.