Acting Out: Six One-Act Plays

by Avi, Susan Cooper, Sharon Creech, Patricia MacLachlan, Katherine Paterson

Overview

With a star-studded lineup of writers, there’s a stage full of drama, comedy, and great storytelling waiting behind these curtains!

Sharon Creech spoofs a publishing office in The Raven, and the environment fights back against overdevelopment in Susan Cooper’s The Dollop. Patricia MacLachlan puts a twist on detention in The Bad Room, and Katherine Paterson revives a classic fairy tale in The Billionaire and the Bird. Richard Peck has schoolboys doing their best to trick a spooky substitute in Effigy in the Outhouse, and Avi’s Not Seeing Is Believing has words playing tricks on everybody. There’s something for everyone in this all-star lineup.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416938491
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/22/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Avi is the author of more than seventy books for children and young adults, including the 2003 Newbery medal winner Crispin: The Cross of Lead. He has won two Newbery Honors and many other awards for his fiction. He lives with his family in Denver, Colorado. Visit him at Avi-Writer.com.

Susan Cooper is one of our foremost fantasy authors; her classic five-book fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books’ accolades include the Newbery Medal, a Newbery Honor, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and five shortlists for the Carnegie Medal. She combines fantasy with history in Victory (a Washington Post Top Ten Books for Children pick), King of Shadows, Ghost Hawk, and her magical The Boggart and the Monster, second in a trilogy, which won the Scottish Arts Council’s Children’s Book Award. Susan Cooper lives on a saltmarsh island in Massachusetts, and you can visit her online at TheLostLand.com.

Patricia MacLachlan (1938–2022) was the author of many well-loved novels and picture books, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal; its sequels, Skylark and Caleb’s Story; Edward’s Eyes; The True Gift; Waiting for the Magic; White Fur Flying; Fly Away; and Snow Horses. She lived in western Massachusetts.

Date of Birth:

December 23, 1937

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

University of Wisconsin; M.A. in Library Science from Columbia University, 1964

Website:

http://www.avi-writer.com

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-8- This collection includes selections by Avi, Sharon Creech, Susan Cooper, Patricia MacLachlan, Katherine Paterson, and Richard Peck. Each play was inspired by a theater-improv game in which the authors started with the selection of a single word. The pieces all include the following words: "dollop," "hoodwink," "Justin," "knuckleball," "panhandle," and "raven." Part of the fun is in seeing how these playwrights incorporate them into their stories. Most are humorous, and they all have many young characters. Production requirements range from easy to difficult. An engaging choice for literature and acting classes as well as general reading.-Terrilyn Fleming, Colby Public Schools, KS

School Library Journal

Editor Chanda recruited six Newbery Award-winning authors-Avi, Susan Cooper, Sharon Creech, Patricia MacLachlan, Katherine Paterson and Richard Peck-to write one-act plays suitable for children to read either silently or aloud, or perhaps to stage. He added one quirky requirement. Each play had to include six specific words, one each submitted by the playwrights: DOLLOP, HOODWINK, JUSTIN, KNUCKLEBALL, PANHANDLE and RAVEN. The results vary delightfully. Creech offers a biting and funny satire on the publishing world, with young Edgar Allan Poe attempting to sell his famous poem, and Peck provides a creepy ghost story about a riotous group of kids in a one-room school tamed by an elderly teacher with long experience. Paterson reworks Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Nightingale" into a modern morality tale, and Avi pens a hilarious play, featuring a disembodied voice, about the monster in the closet. Each author offers advice for staging. These would make exciting classroom or family activities, and all stand up well as entertaining reads. A dollop of fun for everyone. (Plays. 8-14)

Kirkus Reviews