* INDEX:

1)   Plays of America from American Folklore Vol. 1

2)   Plays of America from American Folklore, Vol. 2

3)   Plays of the Songs of Christmas

4)   Plays of the Wild West, Vol. 1

5)   Plays of the Wild West, Vol. 2

6)   Plays from Fairy Tales

7)   Plays from Mythology

8)   Plays of People at Work

9)   Plays of Exploration & Discovery

10)  “Now I Get It!”  12 Ten-Minute Classroom Drama Skits for Science, Math,
                Language & Social Studies, Vol. 1

11)  “Now I Get It!”  12 Ten-Minute Classroom Drama Skits for Science, Math,
                    Language & Social Studies, Vol. 2

12)  Plays of Ancient Israel

13)  Plays of Israel Reborn

PLAYS OF AMERICA FROM AMERICAN FOLKLORE, VOL. 1
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

These one-act plays offer a fresh, entertaining perspective on American folklore and history, celebrating the full diversity of our American cultural mosaic with humorous and adventurous dramatizations of folktales from multicultural sources. All are adaptable to a variety of needs as to cast size and girl/boy ratios, and all include lists of production needs, stage set diagrams, prop lists, costumes, instructions for sound/visual effects and music with notated music for songs and detailed information about the tale’s source culture, story genre and historical context.

1) How the People Got Fire
24-30 actors, min. 2 boys, min. 5 girls. 15 minutes. In this Native American tale, clever animals band together to capture fire from Thunder and Lightning and bring it to earth for humans to use.

2) Let’s Have a Hoedown!
29 actors, min. 17 boys, min. 9 girls. 20 minutes. Characters from favorite 19th-century American folk songs and hoedown tunes come alive. Meet the Yellow Rose of Texas, Arkansas Traveler, Old Joe Clark, Simon Slick and his stubborn mule, John Henry, Old Dan Tucker, Oh Susanna and theYoung Man Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn —  then finish up with a lively square dance!

3) The Cobbler’s Pipe
24 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 4 girls. 15 minutes. In this Dutch-American tale set in 17th-century New York City, the Cobbler Claas and his family are harrassed and impoverished by the evil town burgomaster, Heer Hommel. On Christmas Eve, a curious white-bearded stranger comes to the Claas household bringing gifts and helping the humble cobbler turn the tables on his tormentor.

4) Mr. & Mrs. Charlie T. Mule
19 actors, min. 11 boys, min. 8 girls. 20 minutes. As anyone in the hills of Kentucky can tell you, if you make a false wish on an Amber Day, it will come true — and how! Watch the most cantankerous couple in the hollow, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Poole, accidentally turn each other into half-mule/half-human creatures; it takes every trick the old mountain fiddler Solomon Shell can muster up to get the mules out of the Pooles.

5) Gluscabi and His Magic Game Bag
26 actors, min. 3 boys, min. 1 girl. 25 minutes. Based on two Abenaki and Cherokee tales about Gluscabi, a good-hearted superhero who sometimes makes childish mistakes with his powers but does his best to right things in the end. In order to provide humans with enough food, Gluscabi tricks all the animals in the world into his magic game bag. His Grandmother tells him this is unwise because humans must learn to hunt for themselves and be responsible for maintaining the natural world in its right balance. Gluscabi releases the animals, then must perform other special feats to teach humans how to hunt without destroying the world’s resources.

6) The Beggar in the Blanket
17-20 actors, min. 7 boys, min. 1 girl. 20 minutes. A Vietnamese tale in which a wise wife plays a trick on her husband to show him the true value of friendship. The wealthy Mr. Kim is ashamed of his poor but honest brother, De; when Kim comes home one morning after visiting his rich friends, Mrs. Kim points to a blanket and says she accidentally killed a beggar who tried to rob their house. Kim goes to his friends for help in burying the body in the blanket, but each refuses (and then secretly informs on Kim to the Mandarin, hoping to gain a reward). Finally, Kim asks De, who gladly helps him. When the Kims are arrested and charged with the beggar’s murder, Mrs. Kim reveals that there was no beggar in the blanket — only sticks and stones. The Mandarin punishes the selfish “friends” and rewards Mrs. Kim for her cleverness in teaching her husband a valuable lesson about loyalty.

7) Patches Solves a Wedding Riddle
14 actors, min. 3 boys, min. 6 girls. 20 minutes. A rhyming riddle tale from the folklore of African-Americans living on the Georgia Sea Isles. Young Patches decides he will seek his fortune by going to Atlanta to solve the wedding riddle the Governor’s Daughter’s has posed to her suitors. If he guesses right, he marries the girl; if he  guesses wrong, he’ll be sent to pull weeds in the swamp — with the alligators.

8) Magnus Fourpenny and the Black Bear Birthday Bash
15 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 4 girls. 20 minutes. Old Magnus Fourpenny of Pigeon Roost, Texas would rather play the jaw’s harp than go bear hunting. When his wife orders him to bring back a bear for supper or not come back at all, Magnus ventures into Gumstick Pond and stumbles upon a whole passel of black bears — having a birthday party! While he does return with the fixings for supper, it isn’t exactly roast bear. . .

9) The Laziest Girl in the World
19-25 actors, min. 7 boys, min. 7 girls. 20 minutes. In this Irish-American tale from Boston, young Eileen O’Leary must prove her worthiness to marry the Mayor’s Son by spinning, weaving and sewing a fine shirt. Trouble is, Eileen is the laziest girl in the world and never learned to do anything but stare in a mirror! While locked alone in her room at night, she is visited by three tiny old women (leprechauns, banshees, clúracáns, pookas perhaps?) who do the work for her, proving that if your own boastfulness can get you into trouble, a good friend can get you out just as quick.

10) Tillie Edelpickel’s Sack of Lies
20 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 4 girls. 20 minutes. In this Pennsylvania Dutch variation of a medieval German “Till Eulenspiegel” tale, the heroine uses her magic whistle and the magic words of a friendly hexfrau to outwit the British soldiers holding her brother as a spy. A surprise appearance by General George Washington!

11) The Glass Mountain
23 actors, min. 7 boys, min. 6 girls. 25 minutes. This Finnish-American version of the classic “Cinderella” tale hails from the copper mining country of northern Michigan and spotlights the adventures of Cinders, a hard-working boy bullied by his two oafish step-brothers. With the help of the magical noita, Maki, and the diamond-shoed Heikki the Horse, Cinders climbs the glass mountain and wins the Boss’ Daughter.

12) The Honest Miller (El Molinero Honesto)
17 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 3 girls.  25 minutes. Pedro and Antonio, two wealthy dandies of early New Mexico,  debate whether it is money or luck that can help a poor man get rich. As an experiment, they give two thousand pesos to a humble miller, and the gift changes the poor miller’s life in ways no one can foresee!

13) Shlemazl Goes to Paradise
14 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. A Jewish-American tale describing the hen-pecked Shlemazl and his increasingly ludicrous efforts to find Paradise on Earth. With help of some “magic” shoes and two mischievous maleks (guardian angels), poor Shlemazl finally decides that “if I’d known Paradise was going to be so much like my old village, I wouldn’t have maybe been in such a hurry to get there.”

14) The Most Expensive Bonnet in All Indiana
18-20 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 2 girls. 30 minutes. It’s Independence Day, 1840, and the biggest flatboat race in all Indiana is about to begin when the tiny Prairie Hen and the mighty Hail Columbia cast off down the Wabash & Erie Canal. Make way for fireworks, bombast and hijinks a-plenty as folks lose their heads over a hat!

15) Return of the Red Phantom
14 actors, min. 7 boys, min. 1 girl.  20 minutes. The Gold Rush Days of ’49 come alive for a modern family in Cape Sebastian, Oregon, as they witness a deadly mutiny aboard the clipper ship Red Phantom — right in their own living room!
 

PLAYS OF AMERICA FROM AMERICAN FOLKLORE, VOL. 2
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

These one-act plays offer a fresh, entertaining perspective on American folklore and history, celebrating the full diversity of our American cultural mosaic with humorous and adventurous dramatizations of folktales and historical events. All are adaptable to a variety of needs as to cast size and girl/boy ratios and all include lists of production needs, stage set diagrams, prop lists, costumes, instructions for sound/visual effects and music with notated music for songs and detailed information about the tale’s source culture, story genre and historical context.

1) Johnny Appleseed and Willie Crabgrass
19 actors, min. 12 boys, min. 6 girls. 25 minutes. A legendary figure in American folklore, Johnny Appleseed (aka Jonathan Chapman, 1775-1847) was a pioneer environmentalist who planted orchards throughout the Midwest and taught settlers how to improve their nutrition and agricultural methods. This play presents biographical highlights culminating in a dramatic showdown with Johnny’s cousin, the unscrupulous Willie Crabgrass, as they battle for the soul of America’s ecological future.

2) The Flames of Hell (Les Flammes d’Enfer)
15 actors, 11 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. On Mardi Gras Eve, deep in a lonely Louisiana bayou, a young Cajun fisherman longs to become a master musician and win the love of his girl. In a sudden blaze of fire and smoke, a mysterious fast-talking Talent Agent appears to offer a deal the young man can’t refuse — or can he? Joining the ghostly jam session in the swamp are the restless shades of blues master Robert Johnson, jazz virtuoso Bix Beiderbecke, early country stars Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams, Sr. and Cajun accordion wizard Amédée Ardoin.

3) Abe Lincoln for the Defense
22 actors, min. 15 boys, min. 2 girls. 30 minutes. Based upon an actual criminal trial in 1858 that saw attorney Abraham Lincoln successfully defend the son of an old friend against murder charges. Armed with his broad frontier humor and hallmark common sense, Honest Abe pulls off a stunning courtroom coup and exposes the guilty party. Guest appearance by an inquiring cub reporter from Iowa, Mr. Sam Clemens.

4) The Splendid Voyage of Kitty Doyle
18 actors, min. 9 boys, min. 6 girls. 40 minutes. Fourteen-year-old Jennifer and her Grandma are among a planeful of spring break passengers waiting impatiently for takeoff to Disneyworld and Jennifer is sooooooooo bored. To quiet the fretting teen, Grandma tells the story of how her own grandmother —  young orphan Kitty Doyle — came to America from Ireland in 1860. Suddenly the air-conditioned jetliner changes to a musty, creaking sailing ship, the kindly stewardess replaced by a bullying roustabout and the passengers reappearing as their 19th-century counterparts as Kitty and the wee Dutch cabin boy Pieter Zeeman heroically foil a plan by the ship's captain to wreck the vessel for insurance money. At the end of Grandma's tale, Jennifer sees how vain and self-centered her own attitudes are and begins to act less selfishly toward others.

5) Annie Christmas and the Natchez Trace Bandits
11 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 5 girls. 25 minutes. Six-foot-eight Annie Christmas was a legendary Mississippi ferry boater who flourished during the early 1800s. In this exciting drama, Annie and her passengers, the Ferguson family from Boston, are captured by Big Jim Girty and his gang — the most notorious river pirates in the whole Natchez Trace. With clever tricks and outrageous yarns, Annie and the Fergusons outwit the pirates and win their freedom.

6) “You’re Live with Big-Foot Wallace!”
13 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 2 girls. 25 minutes. Ever wonder what happens to old myths and legends when times and fancies change? They don’t just fade away into oblivion — they make guest appearances on television talk shows and spin their ageless yarns for a new generation of eager listeners. Come join the live studio audience of America Blabs!, where today’s topic is “America’s Tall Tales:  Where Are They Now?” Guest legends:  John Henry, Big-Foot Wallace, Joe Magarac, White Painted Woman, Old Stormalong and Ma-aui who fished up the Great Island of Hawaii, won fire for humankind from Ma-hui’a’s fingernail and fought the Goblin Goddess for the Meat of Immortality.

7) La Caballa Blanca (Greta Nilson’s Magic Mare)
11 actors, min. 8 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. In 1852, a stranded emigrant wagon train faces death on the Oregon Trail. Young Greta Nilson disappears from camp in search of Shunka-tonka-Wakan — the moon-white “Ghost Horse” or “Caballa Blanca” of the prairies, whose mysterious arrivals in time of need have saved many lives since the time of the Conquistadors. Together with her Blackfoot friend, Yellow Hawk, Greta beholds the magic mare and discovers a route that saves the settlers. Guest appearances by Francisco Coronado and mountain man Jim Bridger.

8) When People Could Fly
13 actors, min. 4 boys, min. 1 girl. 15 minutes.  On a Southern plantation before the Civil War, overseers witness slaves sprouting wings, rising from the killing fields and flying away to freedom. Based upon an African-American legend, When People Could Fly is a gripping tale of ordinary men and women harnessing the spiritual knowledge that lies within to transcend their physical limitations.

9) The Seven Chan Brothers of Paiute Pass
22 actors, min. 13 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. En route to the ski resort, Brad and Brittany meet an old prospector and get a guided tour of a Rocky Mountain ghost town not found on any modern map. In this ancient Chinese tale recast in a New World setting, the seven extraordinary Chan brothers fight to save the Widow Flaherty’s gold mine and defeat the anti-foreigner discrimination that flared frequently in the early days of the American frontier.

10) The Most Dangerous Woman in America
24 actors, min. 15 boys, min. 4 girls. 25 minutes. An elderly lady dressed in black strolls into a fast food joint and — with the help of a guitar-strumming folk minstrel and some vivid reminiscing about the bloody Kanawha Valley coal strike of 1912 — rallies the teen workers to stand up against their tyrannical boss. Based on true adventures from the life of labor organizer Mary Harris Jones, known popularly as “Mother Jones”, who devoted her life to helping American workers win fair wages and humane working conditions during the early 20th century.
 

PLAYS OF THE SONGS OF CHRISTMAS
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

These 12 one-act dramatiziations of how our favorite Christmas songs were composed are adaptable to a variety of needs as to cast size and girl/boy ratios; most include a Narrator role. All include:  lists of production needs, stage set diagrams, prop lists, costumes, instructions for sound/visual effects and music with notated music for songs.
 

1) Here We Come A-Wassailing
16 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 5 girls. 20 minutes. An English rural cottage in Yorkshire, 1599. The Holcomb family’s snobby London cousins come visiting for Christmas and complain how boring the country is. A knock at the door is heard and into the house burst a company of village mummers whose ancient wassailing customs and colorful musical gaiety transform Christmas into a vibrant holiday of genuine celebration and spirit.

2) Silent Night
16 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 5 girls. 15 minutes. Disaster threatens the tiny village of Oberndorf, Austria, on Christmas Eve, 1818. Father Josef Mohr, pastor of St. Nicholas’ Church, is informed by his choir director that the humidity from the recent spate of rain and snowstorms has rusted the organ pipes and there will be no music for Midnight Mass; worse, the sexton declares that the rising Salzach River may flood the town and church itself. Fr. Mohr visits Franz Gruber, a guitarist and folk musician, and asks him to compose a choir song for guitar. Together, Mohr and Gruber create the words and music for Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht! — Silent Night, Holy Night —  and at Midnight Mass, the town gathers, fervently sings the song and receives word that the rampaging river has stopped and is beginning to recede — town and church saved!

3) The Twelve Days of Christmas
56 actors, min. 12 boys, min. 19 girls. 25 minutes. In this hilarious rhyming play, Prince Hasalot arrives at the palace to win the hand of Princess Harmonia, filling the court with ever more outrageous gifts until the stage is crammed with leaping lords and dancing ladies, pipers, drummers, maids and unruly flocks of geese, French hens, turtle doves, swans, etc. Finally, the exasperated Princess convinces the Prince that Christmas isn’t about expensive gifts — it’s about caring for people and giving of your inner self. The Prince gets the message and gives his gifts to the poor, inviting the kingdom into the palace for a huge feast.

4) O,  Christmas Tree
11-16 actors, min. 5 boys. 15 minutes. St. Boniface and a young monk are in 8th-century Germany attempting to convert the pagan Teutons to Christianity. On Christmas Eve, in the forest near Geismar, they come across a pagan chieftain and his men about to sacrifice one of their tribe at a giant oak tree — the sacred tree of the pagan god Odin. Seizing his wooden staff, St. Boniface strikes the tree down with one mighty blow and frees the victim. The Teutons are impressed by the saint’s power and immediately convert to Christianity, but bemoan the loss of their symbol, the giant oak tree. St. Boniface points to a tiny fir tree nestled among the roots of the fallen oak and tells them to take that as their symbol — the “ever green” symbol of Christ, bringer of life eternal.

5) Diamonds in the Snow
8 actors, 4 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. At Christmas dinner, Grandpa is asked by his grandkids to tell a story about “the old days”. He tells about when he was a boy in  the mountains of East Tennessee, and the family was too poor to have any toys — his widowed mother a textile mill worker who’d been laid off in October and the one narrow road leading into the hollow completely closed by snow. Even so, he believes Santa Claus will come, a belief his Aunt Leddy encourages by saying that if you look really hard, you can see “diamonds in the snow” — the footsteps of where an angel has walked — and your wish will be granted. On Christmas Eve, the boy dreams of diamonds in the snow and is awakened by strange noises outside and downstairs; he wakes his mother and aunt and discovers they have presents under their tree — as do all the homes in the hollow, even though the road is still blocked by snow.

6) Jingle Bells
9 actors, min. 4 boys, min. 4 girls.  25 minutes. Christmas Eve, 1857, Boston. The Pierpont Family is ready to travel to Grandmother’s farm for Christmas dinner, but their new horse, Pettynoll, refuses to move. Father says that the man who sold the horse was from Quebec, and the Pierpont children, Lucas and Liza, wonder if perhaps the horse has another name — a Christmas name. Mother notes that “pettynoll” could also be prounced “Petit Noël” — French for “little Christmas”. Hearing the correct prounciation of its name, the horse whinnies but still does not move. Lucas and Liza suggest making up a Christmas song about riding a horse, and the family creates Jingle Bells, which finally gets Pettynoll off and running.

7) Good King Wenceslas
13-17 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 3 girls. 15 minutes. On a wintry St. Stephen’s day in 10th-century Bohemia, King Wenceslas shares a royal feast with his nobles. The King looks out the window and sees a ragged serf foraging on the hill for firewood. Queen Marta encourages him to help the peasant; Wenceslas’ brother, the haughty Duke Boleslav, says such charity is a waste of time. Wenceslas decides to personally deliver food, drink and gifts to the peasant’s family and sets out in a blizzard with his young page; the page begins to freeze, but an angel appears and tells the page to walk in the King’s footsteps. The page does so and is immediately warmed with every step until they reach the serf’s house and have a feast.

8) O Thou Joyful Day
9 actors, 4 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. The island of Sicily, 320 A.D. A bearded traveler, dressed as an ordinary monk or pilgrim, enters a small village and listens to two gossipy clothsellers discuss a local man, Antonio, who has become so poor he is about to sell his three daughters into slavery to pay his taxes. “If only Bishop Nicholas of Myra would hear of this,” says one of the clothsellers. “He would find a way to help this man.” The traveler goes to Antonio’s house, where the tax collector and slave buyer are ready to sign the contract for the first daughter. The traveler persuades them to wait one more day; that night he returns to the house and, with no one watching, throws a bag of gold down the chimney. Next morning, Antonio finds the gold and pays off the tax collector part of what he owes. That night the traveler returns, puts another bag of gold into the chimney and saves the second daughter. The third night, the third daughter catches the traveler preparing to toss in a third bag of gold; the family awakes and the traveler is revealed as Bishop Nicholas, who tours the country giving his family’s wealth to the needy. Before he leaves town, Nicholas cautions Antonio and his daughters to tell no one of his generosity; however, he has been overheard by one of the gossipy clothsellers who immediately begins repeating the tale of Nicholas the gift-giver.

9) Let Us Go, O Shepherds
12 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 4 girls. 15 minutes. Manuel, a shepherd boy in New Mexico during the early 1700s, is sternly ordered by his master to find a missing lamb — or not come back at all. Wandering through the chilly desert night, Manuel meets an old man who asks him for a blanket; Manuel gives it to him. He meets an old woman who asks him for food; Manuel gives her his last tortilla. Now cold and hungry, Manuel meets a young man; Manuel immediately protests that he has nothing left to give. The young man says it is now Manuel’s turn to receive and points toward a large cactus that shelters a man, woman and newborn infant — the Holy Family. Manuel pays homage to them, receives the baby Jesus’ blessing and returns to his master and the other shepherds, who berate him for not finding the missing lamb. Manuel replies, “I have found the lamb — Jesus, the Lamb of God. Come, and you will see.” They follow Manuel into the night.

10) Bring a Torch Jeannette, Isabella
11-15 actors, min. 2 boys, min. 3 girls. 15 minutes. A village in Provence, France, 1676. 11-year-old Camille is upset because she cannot attend the grand Christmas Eve ball —  she and her 10-year-old twin sisters (Jeannette and Isabella) have been left in charge of running the family inn while their widowed mother goes to the next village to care for a sick friend. Camille is especially annoyed at two new arrivals, a young husband and pregnant wife, who are causing her even more work; at midnight, however, she hears strange noises from the outside loft and discovers the barn animals kneeling before the mother and her newborn baby — Jesus.

11) We Three Kings of Orient Are
12-16 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 2 girls. 15 minutes. One December night, during the reign of Caesar Augustus, a peculiarly bright star rises in the East and is noticed by three kings:  Balthasar of Ethiopa, Melchior of Arabia, Gaspar of Tarsus. Each king is troubled by the warlike state of the world and believes the strange natural phenomenon portends the arrival of a Messiah who will rescue the human race from itself. The kings set out on their journeys bearing expensive gifts; following the star, they meet on the road to Bethlehem where they encounter a blind man suddenly cured who relates other recent miracles and a Roman centurion who has cast down his sword and tells of other soldiers who refuse to fight.  Expecting a great and glorious royal figure like themselves, the three kings are guided by a shepherd to a crude stable on the outskirts of town and are astonished when they behold the baby Jesus. They offer their gifts and realize that true power comes not from military might or wealth but from purity of heart.

12) Go Tell It on the Mountain
12 actors, 7 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. 1898, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of north Georgia. In the hamlet of Mistletoe, everything is divided down the middle; even the town’s official Christmas tree is decorated in fenced-off halves by the Cooper and Calloway families, who have been feuding for generations. On Christmas Eve, the tree mysteriously burns, and each faction accuses the other. A strange man with a harmonica who speaks only in song and Bible verses appears in town, and rumors run wild:  is he a minstrel show entertainer, a wandering gunslinger — or maybe the Messiah? Next morning, the town awakes and finds the stranger gone and the tree miraculously restored, unblemished and fully ornamented; the last words the stranger said are stuck on the tree, written out as a gospel song — Go Tell It on the Mountain.
 

PLAYS OF THE WILD WEST, VOL 1
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

The wild and wooly American frontier lives again! These 12 original plays offer humorous and adventurous dramatizations of songs, folktales, historical events and larger-than-life characters from Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane to Sacajawea and Sitting Bull. Join the railroaders, mountain men, vaqueros, 49ers, outlaws and — yessiree, pardner — the school teachers and missionaries who settled the West. Each play has an introduction with historical information as well as helpful notes for staging, costuming and music. The Plays of the Wild West series is perfect for making American history come alive!
 

1) The Rainbow Cradle
15 actors, min. 4 boys, min. 5 girls. 15 minutes. A visit to Window Rock Reservation, Arizona Territory, in 1876 to discover the magic of Navajo ritual and art with Bird-Comes-Back and her brother Three Stars.

2) Klondike Fever
14 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 1 girls. 20 minutes. Humorous rhyming play á la Robert Service on the Alaska Gold Rush, based on the character of “the Saint of the Sourdoughs” — Nellie Cashman (1851-1925), a native of Cork, Ireland, who lived throughout the West prospecting and establishing boarding homes, restaurants and stores for miners. See Nellie and her faithful Siberian Husky, Snowball, face the conniving crooks Pig-Ear Pete, Backstab Bill and Cannibal Ike!

3) Darling Clementine
34 actors, min. 10 boys, min. 5 girls. 25 minutes. The growth of San Francisco, California from a tiny fishing village into one of the great cities of the world  — through the feline eyes of Miss Clementine, The Grand Calico Queen of Yerba Buena. Actors Lotta Crabtree and Edwin Booth, authors Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain, along with other famous 19th-century San Franciscans make appearances.

4) Bird Woman of the Shoshones
16 actors, min. 9 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. Life of Shoshone girl, Sacajawea, who assisted the historic Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. This play follows the trail of the great explorers and shows the role Sacajawea played in guiding the expedition safely to the Pacific Ocean.

5) “Git Along, Little Dogies!”
16-22 actors, min. 6 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. While working in their Aunt Laura’s general store in San Saba, Texas, in 1871, young Jake and Jenny meet a trio of cowboys (Ramon Diego, Harvey Coryell, Crawfish Charlie) stocking in supplies for a cattle drive up the Old Chisholm Trail with legendary cattlemen Jesse Chisholm and Joseph McCoy.

6) The Little Old Sod Shanty
14 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 4 girls.  20 minutes. The settling of the Great Plains told by homesteaders and emigrants. Follow the adventures of the Hans Niethammer Family and Sodbuster Pete as they battle bone-chilling blizzards, sweltering droughts, locust attacks — and square dancers!

7) Zebra Dun
8 actors, min. 3 boys. 15 minutes.  A lively dramatization of one of the funniest Western songs to shoot out of the corral. . . about a suspected greenhorn, a band of prankish cowboys and a loco bronco with a mind of its own.

8) Annie Oakley:  Little Sure-Shot
28 actors, min. 6 boys, min. 6 girls. 25 minutes. Life of Annie Oakley, world-famous sharpshooter and entertainer with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, featuring appearances by Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill and a crack troupe of Cowboys, Indians and Vaqueros.

9) El Paseo del Vaquero (The Ride of the Vaquero)
15 actors, min. 9 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. In 1850 the Hoskins Family moves from Connecticut to Sante Fe, New Mexico, and 10-year-old Mike Hoskins learns rope tricks and fancy riding from a trio of Mexican vaqueros, who tell the story of the first North American cowboys.

10) The Golden Spike
30 actors, min. 11 boys, min. 2 girls. 20 minutes. Come to Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869, to celebrate the linking of the first transcontinental railway, as Jane and Jared hear their Aunt Anna relive Uncle Theodore Judah’s dream of uniting the United States by rail — a dream it took six years and 1,776 miles of track to fulfill.

11) Pony Express Rider
18 actors, min. 5 boys, min. 3 girls. 20 minutes. This history of the fabled Pony Express, featuring teenager Buffalo Bill Cody, recounts highlights from the most daring and action-filled method of mail delivery ever.

12) Great Medicine Painter
17 actors, min. 7 boys, min. 5 girls. 20 minutes. The life of George Catlin (1796-1872), first American artist to venture into the West for the specific purpose of recording the life and culture of Native American tribes. During a time when most Americans back East thought Indians were simple savages, Catlin’s paintings and books helped show that the Indians possessed a complex and sophisticated culture deserving of respect and preservation.
 

PLAYS OF THE WILD WEST, VOL. 2
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

The 12 plays in this book celebrate an epic period in American history — covering a wide spectrum of historic events, ranging from the Battle of Wounded Knee and death of Sitting Bull to the slaughter of the American buffalo and the travels of the first mountain men. Most importantly for educators, Plays of the Wild West, Vol. 2 present not only well-known Western icons such as Jesse James, Geronimo, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane; they provide concise glimpses of the folks who did the real work of taming the frontier:  homesteaders, railroaders, miners, missionaries, working cowboys and the West’s first settlers, the Native Americans.

1) The Buffalo Hunters
31 actors, min. 15 boys, 3 girls. 30 minutes. The epic story of the Western buffalo hunts and the ecological and human tragedy they wrought, with appearances by California Joe, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Sitting Bull.

2) Chief Sarah, The Indian Joan of Arc
21 actors, min. 7 boys, 14 girls. 20 minutes. First woman chief of the Paiutes, Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891) served as an Army scout and interpreter, school teacher, author, lecturer and tireless champion of Indian rights. Even the whites who fought against Chief Sarah admired her courage, dubbing her “The Indian Joan of Arc”, after the brave young French young woman who led her nation to victory in the Middle Ages.

3) El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez
15 actors, min. 6 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez” is a folk ballad that has been sung along the Texas-Mexico border for nearly a hundred years and is based on a true incident. In South Texas in 1901, a Spanish-speaking farm worker was unjustly accused by an English-speaking sheriff of stealing a horse. Because neither the worker nor the sheriff could understand each other’s language, confusion led to distrust and distrust led to fear; within seconds, pistols were produced and blood was shed, resulting in the ruin of many innocent lives as Cortez led hundreds of pursuers on a chase across the state before finally surrendering. This unfortunate miscommunication between cultures was a pattern repeated many times throughout the West, but seldom has it been so thrillingly documented as in El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez.

4) Fandango!
24 actors, min. 10 boys, 10 girls. 30 minutes. Though life for early settlers in the Wild West was usually very hard, there were occasional social events where people could relax and have fun. These “fandangos” often brought together many cultures; the common denominator of music and dance made folks temporarily forget their differences as everyone contributed to the entertainment with a story or a song. Featured songs include La Encantadora; Un, Deux, Trois; Weevily Wheat; Dime Sí, Sí, Sí; When I Was a Cowboy; The Woodsman’s Alphabet; Poor Wayfaring Stranger; Song of Good Luck; The Cowboy’s Dream with guest appearances by African-American cowboy Nat Love (1854-1907) and “Stagecoach” Mary Fields (1833-1914), the second American woman to carry a U.S. mail route.

5) Greasepaint and Ginthons:  The Medicine Show Comes to Town
14 actors, min. 6 boys, 2 girls. 30 minutes. Young Ben runs away from home to become a hobo; on the way to “the Big Rock Candy Mountain”, he meets up with a traveling medicine show — then the real fun begins!

6) “Have Floss, Will Travel”:  The Ever-So True Saga of Hiram T. McRoot, Frontier Dentist
13 actors, min. 6 boys, 1 girls.  25 minutes. Tombstone may have been tamed by the Earps and Old Abilene by Bat Masterson, but in Buzzard Belch, Colorado, the “root” of the town’s gunslinger problem is cured with a blazing scaler and cavity extraction at high noon. A humorous semi-operatic rhyming spoof of the Western lawman genre.

7) Jesse James:  Blood on the Saddle
33 actors, min. 15 boys, 3 girls. 25 minutes. The exploits of Missouri bandit Jesse James, in fact and folklore, from his childhood days through his Civil War guerilla activities and years as a terror-wielding bank and train robber.

8) Ninth Cavalry to the Rescue!
24 actors, min. 7 boys. 20 minutes. Introduced by General Colin Powell, this play celebrates the legendary Buffalo Soldiers — the first African-American soldiers commissioned during peacetime, from their service in the Lincoln County Wars to the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Appearances by Billy the Kid, Geronimo and Governor Lew Wallace.

9) Outlaw Gold:  The Lost Treasure of Commanche Creek
9 actors, min. 4 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. It’s another boring Saturday in suburbia, and three modern youngsters get more adventure than they bargain for when they pursue the local legend of a lost mine and buried outlaw treasure.

10) Rocky Mountain Rendezvous
21 actors, min. 7 boys, 3 girls. 30 minutes. At “The Last Rendezvous” of Western fur trappers in 1839, three veteran mountain men (Antoine Robidou, Joe Meek and Jim Beckwourth) sit around the campfire in Horse Creek, Wyoming, and sensitize an Eastern missionary to frontier culture with real-life Indian tales:  Iktomi the Spider, Black Bear Curing Song and The Story of the Sasquatch.

11) Turquoise Tom, The Versifying Bandit of Old California
18 actors, min. 5 boys, 1 girl. 20 minutes. Join old-timers Buckshot Bill, Pancho Pescado and Whispering Jim as they tell the story of Turquoise Tom, a lesser-known cousin to 1880s’ stage coach robber “Black Bart”, who occasionally left short poems at the scene of the crime. A meldorama sure to curdle your strophes!

12) Vinegar Pete’s Calico Whisker Pie
17 actors, min. 7 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. A rhyming, humorous tribute to an irascible chuck wagon cook, or “cookie”, as the man who prepared meals for the cowboys was commonly called, whose specialty dish nearly leads to an unfortunate necktie party!
 

PLAYS FROM FAIRY TALES
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

These 12 original plays re-create the enchantment of the story hour, with humorous and adventurous dramatizations of classic fairy tales from around the world — knights and damsels in distress, ogres, genies, talking animals, giant beanstalks, mischievous leprechauns and more. Each play has an introduction with information about its source culture, story genre and historical context, as well as helpful notes for staging, costuming and music. Plays from Fairy Tales brings timeless legends of epic fantasy to your home and classroom stage!

1) Aruman, Hero of Java
16 actors, min. 3 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes. In this hero tale from Java, young Aruman must prove himself worthy to succeed his father as chief; armed with a flying shoes and cloak, he receives help to fight pirates and headless dwarves from Alligator, Black Bird, Tigers and a mysterious Old Woman.

2) A Cosmic Bouquet
24 actors, min. 3 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes.  Three ancient tales from Hawaii (The Fisherman Who Caught the Sun), Japan (The Moon Maiden) and the Wasco Indians of Oregon (Coyote Places the Stars) offer theories about the origin of the very sun, moon and stars we see from our own earthly vantage point.

3) East of the Sun, West of the Moon
18 actors, min. 2 boys, 9 girls. 25 minutes. In this tale from Norway, the peasant girl Paulina outsmarts a coven of evil witches to win the hand of her Prince held captive as a White Bear by the spell of Long-Nose the Witch.

4) The Great Flying Ship of Ivan the Impossible
17 actors, min. 4 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes. For simple Ivan to marry the Tsar of Russia’s daughter, he must accomplish seemingly impossible tasks in a short time — or lose his head! Not a problem, when you have friends like Sharp Ear, Swift Foot, Hawk Eye, Hay Maker and Wood Cutter in your corner!

5) The Lost Spear
20 actors plus chorus, min. 5 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. In this tale from Senegal, West Africa, a peasant boy seeking the hand of his bride must pass a very severe “son-in-law test” — descending into the Land of the Dead to retrieve a lost spear! Fortunately, Zandilli is aided by a host of animal friends (Vulture, Frog, Butterfly, Water Lilies, Fireflies, Lizards) and the Moon Goddess herself. Features African-style choral ensemble songs: Call of the Griot, Zandilli’s Walking Song, Sapphire Lake, Dance of the Fireflies.

6) The Magic Ring
13 actors, min. 4 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. Loyal Dog and Shrewd Cat help rescue the impetuous boy Gigi as he seeks adventure and romance throughout Italy. Of course, even a kitten or puppy could have suspected Gigi would have a problem with his lady love. . . her very name, “Maliarda”, is Italian for “enchantress” or “witch”!

7) The Six Swans
15 actors, min. 8 boys, 3 girls.15 minutes. A classic German tale from the first edition of fairy tales ever published by The Brothers Grimm. In order to save her her six brothers who have been turned into swans, Lili, the Daughter of a King bewitched by his faithless Queen, must never speak or laugh for six years. When Lili meets her own Good Prince, how can she tell him of her love without condemning her brothers to an eternity as water fowl?

8) Squeak and Maiow!
10 actors plus chorus, min. 6 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. These three tales from Wales (The Cat and the Mouse), the Congo (The Cat and the Rat) and ancient Greece (The Lion and the Mouse) explore the longstanding relationship — usually antagonistic but always full of wry humor — between the feline and rodent families.

9) Three Tales for Thrippence
23 actors, min. 7 boys, 11 girls. 20 minutes. These three tales from Spain (The Three Wishes), Papua (The Three Sisters) and England (The Three Sillies) are filled with all sorts of threes and threesomes, from three magical wishes to a three-penny pig. See the Fairy Fortunata, Gata the Cat, Perro the Dog and the Three Silliest People on Earth!

10) The Twelve Months
17 actors, min. 3 boys, 5 girls. 15 minutes. The plucky heroine of this Slovakian tale, a variant of the popular Cinderalla legend, must contend with not only an evil step-mother but an equally nasty step-sister! Like the best fairy tales, The Twelve Months teaches an important lesson — polite people eventually succeed in life and live happily ever after; rude people spend their lives wandering in the cold.

11) Una and the Goblin King
12 actors, min. 3 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. This Irish tale is part of a long tradition of dragon-slayer legends, except that the hero this time is a heroine and the dragon is a goblin! Una’s sister Maeve disappears after walking “widdershins” around the castle; with her trusty shillelagh and a magic phrase, Una journeys to the heart of Elfland to fight sorcerers and the Goblin King himself.

12) Young Olli and the Trolls
13 actors, min. 5 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. What do you do when your neighbors invite you to supper, and you’re the main course? In this humorous tale from Finland, Olli and his brothers Illi and Ulli outwit a family of people-eating trolls, while gaining a magic horse and plenty of troll treasure.
 

PLAYS FROM MYTHOLOGY
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

These 12 original plays re-create the stirring power of classic mythology, with humorous and adventurous dramatizations of classic myths from around the world. Each play has an introduction with information about its source culture and historical context, as well as helpful notes for staging, costuming and music. Plays from Mythology is a great way for children to explore ancient history and see the world through the eyes of our ancestors. And for adults, Plays from Mythology offers a chance to recapture the joy and excitement we all felt the first time we heard the thrilling words “once upon a time. . .”.
 

1) Dreamtime Down Under
19 actors, min. 4 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes. Central to Aboriginal mythology is the “Dream Time”, an ancient time when the ancestors travelled across Australia shaping the landscape, structuring society and depositing the spirits of unborn children in animals, trees and people. Join Jim Borala the Song Man and his didjeridoo as he introduces a trio of tales featuring Naarait the Cockatoo, Lakemaker, Murgah Muggui the Witch, Koala, Kangaroo, Gur-Gur, Wombatand Kookaburra.

2) Fionn in Search of His Youth
9 actors, min. 5 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. This ancient Irish myth features super-hero Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) and the Fianna, a band of warrior adventurers with special powers who battle other warriors and creatures from the spirit world. One winter’s night Fionn and the Fianna step into an old woman’s cottage and get a lesson in what bravery and power really mean.

3) The  Flight of Icarus
19 actors, min. 11 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. This action-filled tale from ancient Greek mythology depicts the curse of King Minos, Theseus’ slaying of the ferocious Minotaur, the doomed flight of Daedalus and Icarus  and figures from other Greek myths — Poseidon, Atlas, Hermes, Prometheus, Ares and Artemis.

4) Freya’s Golden Necklace
12 actors plus chorus, min. 4 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. In many Norse myths, the gods have distinctly human personality traits and occasionally resort to disguise and subterfuge to achieve their ends. Here the trickster Loki creates all sorts of mischief for Thor, Freya and Thrym and his giants, with the action paced by  a running quasi-operatic vocal commentary by onstage Valkyries!

5) Gilgamesh and the Rose of Immortality
14 actors, min. 7 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes. This ancient Sumerian tale presents the first mythic hero celebrated in world literature — Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, who leaves his kingdom to search for immortality and must face Scorpion Men, a 300-mile tunnel of darkness and a flood created to destroy the human race but for one man and his family.

6) King Midas and the Golden Touch
14 actors, min. 3 boys, 6 girls. 20 minutes. This rhyming play unfolds the popular and tragic Roman myth of a king destroyed by insatiable greed; included are appearances by the gods Bacchus and Silenus and Four Muses:  Terpsichore, Calliope, Thalia and Polyhymnia.

7) The Monkey King
14 actors plus chorus, min. 3 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. The Buddhist Jataka Tales tell of the Buddha’s numerous lives as a different animal. Here Buddha is a Monkey King who sacrifices his life to protect his tribe of monkeys from the humans destroying the forest; his brave, unselfish example inspires the boy king of Benares, Brahmadatta, to rule more wisely. This play features the hit song The Monkey King by singer/songwriter Penny Nichols.

8) How Quetzalcoatl Found the Sun
14 actors, min. 2 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. This play from ancient Mexico tells the story of the half god-half serpent Quetzalcoatl, a benevolent god who taught humans about agriculture, industry and the arts while fighting his evil sibling gods, the Tezcatlipocas, who constantly try to destroy the world — even today!

9) The Throne of Osiris
14 actors, min. 7 boys, 6 girls. 15 minutes. When Osiris, Lord of the Egyptian Underworld is treacherously murdered, his brother Seth and son Horus vie to succeed him as Pharaoh. Ra — god of the sun and the supreme deity of Egypt — calls a council of the gods, and Isis, Shu, Thoth, Geb and Hathor gather to decide the new Pharaoah, while working to solve the mystery of who killed Osiris.

10) Tshai the Brickmaker
15 actors,  min. 3 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. This tale from ancient China tells the tragic story of Tshai the Brickmaker, a vain, greedy man who refuses to make proper sacrifice to the gods. As punishment, he is ordered by Supreme God Jade and Supreme Goddess Wang Mu to sacrifice his own daughter, the beautiful Ma-Ku. Conniving as ever, Tshai tries to outwit the gods. . . with disastrous consequences.

11) When a River Cries:  The Myth of Oba and Oshun
13 actors, min. 5 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. This West African myth describes the origins of two rivers in Nigeria — the result of a feud between the goddesses Oba and Oshun, both married to the thunder god Shango. Poor Oba. . . she believed Oshun’s joke about the recipe for “ear soup”. . . now Oba will never hear the end of it!

12) Why Bears No Longer Talk
15 actors,  min. 4 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes.While hiking in California’s Shasta National Forest, Mark and Melanie meet guide John Bright Cloud, who relates this Native American tale about the Sky Spirit’s Daughter, the Bear she married, and how their children became the first people and ancestors of all Native American tribes.
 

PLAYS OF PEOPLE AT WORK
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

Plays of People at Work responds to children’s number one query:  “What do I want to be when I grow up?” These 12 original plays follow a quartet of bright, inquisitive grade schoolers — Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton — as they visit friends and family at real-life work sites with their teachers, Ms. Vera and Mr. Brooks. Plays of People at Work shows age-appropriate career situations involving contemporary, gender-neutral occupations. Each play has an introduction with details about the nature of the work, educational and training requirements and where to find more information about the occupation, as well as helpful notes for staging, costuming and music. Plays of People at Work is perfect for helping children turn play time into learning time!

1) Monster in the Basement (Animal Rescue Agent)
10 actors, min. 4 boys, 5 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton watch animal rescue agents Art Dawson and Sandi Barr rescue a wayward raccoon from the basement of Mr. and Mrs. Cogan.

2) The Big Scoop (Newspaper Reporter)
10 actors, min. 4 boys, 6 girls. 15 minutes. While Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton wait after school to meet Janice’s stepmother for ice cream, a huge wind storm blows through downtown. The kids help Mrs. Brown gather material for her newspaper article on the storm. . . while also helping solve a traffic crime!

3) Roll ’em Up, Roll’em Up! (Pastry Chef)
9 actors, min. 3 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton visit Steve’s Uncle Leo, a pastry chef, at his bakery; they learn how bread is made and get to make their own cake icing. Turns out, somebody has a birthday, and somebody else has planned a big birthday surprise!

4) Call of the Wild (Park Ranger)
14 actors, min. 6 boys, 5 girls 15 minutes. Park ranger Gina Boyd gives Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton a tour of Tahtokah State Park; they learn about ecology, wildlife preservation and help rescue two lost hikers.

5) Opening Night at the Opera, er, Opry (Piano Tuner)
9 actors, min. 4 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. A few hours before a concert, piano tuner Brenda Foy gives Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton a quick lesson in how the piano is made and tuned; suddenly, classical soprano Madame Fifi and country singer Dolly Mae Cottonwood arrive, both thinking they’ve booked the hall for the night! A musical duel of the divas ensues until the kids suggest a way for both singers to have their piano and play it, too.

6) It’s an Emergency! (Emergency Medical Technician)
11 actors, min. 4 boys, 6 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton visit an EMS Dispatch Center, where technicians Barbara Nielsen and Walter Carillo discuss the basic of EMS service. Suddenly, a call for help comes in —  a woman has fallen — and the kids see the EMS crew on the job.

7) Robots Are Everywhere (Robotics Engineer)
11 actors, min. 4 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton visit a robotics engineering lab and learn how robots are designed. They even get to some robots “in action” — including Fetch, a Retrieval Robot who seems to have taken a liking to Burton’s baseball cap!

8) Heave Away, Haul Away! (Tugboat Captain)
25 actors, min. 4 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton sail across the harbor on a real working tugboat and watch the crew push a sand barge to its dock. As they float along, they relive the history of the waterway from Native Americans and Pirates to Voyageurs, Pioneers and 49ers. A musical gala featuring folk songs and sea shanties Bound for South Australia, The Flying Cloud, Ojibway Canoe Song, Dans Les Chantiers Nous Hivernerons, Shenadoah, Sacramento, When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

9) The Case of the Purple Pen (Crime Lab Technician)
12 actors, min. 3 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton tour a police crime lab, examine actual analysis instruments and investigate clues related to the theft of Burton’s bicycle that morning. Exactly what are those red streaks on that purple pen found where the bike had been parked? Whose pen is it, anyway? The answer to this mystery will shock you!

10) See You in Court! (Legal Aid Lawyer)
15 actors, min. 4 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton go to court and watch lawyer Roberta Hale (Burton’s cousin) defend her client against the Fun-O-Rama Toy Company, which knowingly manufactured a defective version of the Wacky Jacky Hackysacky Doll. In the end, justice is not blind. . . but needs a new pair of glasses.

11) Yankee Doodle Had a Brick (Brick Mason)
10 actors, min. 4 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton watch Mr. Hart (Janice’s father) and his bricklaying crew install a replica of an 18th-century brick sidewalk in the garden of the historical society museum. The Mayor and two museum interpreters — Yellow Thrush and Isaac Holcomb, two of the town founders — join in for a dedication ceremony.

12) Lights, Camera, Traction! (Television News Director)
18 actors plus chorus, min. 3 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton go behind the scenes of a real television studio for a live broadacast of The Willy Bear Show. Guided by director Sara Whittaker, the kids see the crew prepare set, costumes, lights, sound, makeup and — finally — the star of the show himself, Mr. Willy Bear!

12+) Reach for the Stars (Epilogue)
6 actors, min. 3 boys, 3 girls. 10 minutes. With their teachers Ms. Vera and Mr. Brooks, Janice, Steve, Paula and Burton reflect upon the work sites they’ve visited and the occupations they’ve seen. They discuss the things they liked best about seeing people at work, what kind of skills a person needs to be a good worker and what ways people find to maintain pleasure and fulfillment in their work. The session concludes with everyone singing a song the kids have composed — Reach for the Stars.
 

PLAYS OF EXPLORATION & DISCOVERY
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
 

Plays of Exploration and Discovery celebrates the visionary men and women throughout history whose dedication and courage in conquering the frontiers of science, medicine and geography helped shape our modern world. These 12 original plays present action-filled, idea-packed scenes depicting epic moments of discovery by Nicholas Copernicus, Marco Polo, Johannes Gutenberg, Louis Pasteur, Nellie Bly, Joseph Lister, Stephanie Kwolek, Leif Ericson, Archimedes, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, G.W. Carver, Maria Sibylla Merian, Isaac Newton, Amerigo Vespucci, Grace Hopper and more. Plays of Exploration and Discovery will open new vistas of excitement for young explorers in your school and home!
 

1) Mothers and Daughters of Invention:  4,000 Years of Women in Science
15 actors, min. 2 boys, 13 girls. 20 minutes. Throughout history, women have been responsible for many important scientific discoveries and have devised numerous practical inventions to make our world a safer, healthier, happier place to live. This play details contributions of notable women scientists from Hypatia of Alexandria and Lady Augusta Lovelace (inventor of the first computing machine) to Nobel Prize winners physicist Madame Curie and geneticist Barbara McClintock.

2) Counting, from Quipu to Googol
12 actors, min. 3 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes. Delve into the history of mathematical thought and counting systems from ancient times to present featuring Pascal, Babbage, Aryabhata (inventor of zero), Al-Khwarizmi and other famous number-crucnhcers.

3) “Constellations Then Arise”:  Astronomy in the Age of Copernicus
11 actors, min. 4 boys, 1 girl. 20 minutes. 16th-century Polish astronomer Nicholaus Copernicus (1473-1543) set forth a new way of looking at the universe that would change science forever. His ideas were not welcomed by the scientific establishment of his day, however; this play dramatizes his struggle to publish his ground-breaking work against heated opposition.

4)  Around the World with Nellie Bly
23 actors, min. 8 boys, 9 girls. 25 minutes. Journalist Nellie Bly (1865-1922) was a trailblazing reporter who wrote about issues not often discussed in newspapers of the day:  the impact of social, political and economic policies on working women and children. In 1889-90 she journeyed across the globe to see if she could match the fictional record held by a character in Jules Verne’s book, Around the World in Eighty Days. After making the trip in seventy-two days, Nellie Bly became the most famous woman in the world — follow her amazing trip!

5) Marking Time:  Clocks and Calendars through the Centuries
7 actors, min. 1 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes. Explore the mystery of the Fourth Dimension — Time, and humanity’s efforts over the last several thousand years to capture the endless flow of time in clocks and calendars, sundials and digital watches.

6) Isaac Newton’s Poetry of the Rainbow
7 actors, min. 4 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes. The discoveries of English astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Isaac Newton (1642-1727) helped put scientific inquiry on a practical footing leading to breakthroughs in many fields. This play follows his career from a poor rural plowboy to a world-renowned hero of science.

7) Naming the Unnamed:  The Strange Saga of Amerigo Vespucci
14 actors, min. 9 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. If Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Western Hemisphere, why isn’t America called Columbia? The answer lies in the curious and intriguing adventures of another Italian explorer and friend of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512).

8) Everyday Science in Ben Franklin’s America
11 actors, min. 3 boys, 2 girls. 25 minutes. Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was an extraordinary scientist and thinker who did much to promote science in Colonial America. Have a front-row seat at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society that concludes with an actual experiment from Franklin’s book Experiments and Observations on Electricity!

9) Lady of the Lamp:  Florence Nightingale, Founder of Modern Nursing
12 actors, min. 6 boys, 6 girls. 20 minutes. In the midst of a ferocious war, English nurse Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) revolutionized hospital methods that saved thousands of lives and laid the foundations for modern nursing and health care.

10) Edward Jenner and the Gossip of Dairymaids
10 actors, min. 6 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was an English country physician who established the initial concepts of preventive medicine by using vaccination to ward off disease. Witness the breakthrough moments in his search for a weapon to fight the terrible scourge of smallpox.

11) Anthroplogy, The Science of Us
5 actors, min. 1 girl. 20 minutes. Learn how anthropology studies the “human animal” and the incredibly complex collection of ideas, practices, rituals, behavior patterns and activities that make up human culture, from how we organize our families and schools to how we display emotion at sports events and funerals.

12) Geegaws and Doohickeys:  Indispensable Inventions and Their Forgotten Inventors
12 actors, min. 7 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. Much of what we take for granted in our daily life — from microchips to crayons, from plastic to penicillin — resulted from unplanned experiments or even accidents in the laboratory. This play tells the stories behind the invention of the zipper, computer mouse, velcro, car radio, microwave oven, gas mask, traffic light, skateboard and more!
 

“NOW I GET IT!”
12 Ten-Minute Classroom Drama Skits
for Science, Math, Language & Social Studies, Vol. 1

by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
_____________________________________________

*  Focused Learning Exercises to Boost Comprehension
        and Creativity in the Elementary Classroom  *
 

1) The Parts of Speech (Syntax)
17 actors, min. 8 boys, 9 girls. This play highlights the basic elements of sentence construction and punctuation.

2) “May I Quote That?” (Writing)
14 actors, min. 5 boys, 9 girls. This play is a grammar exercise that highlights the use of quotation marks and aids in developing writing, comprehension and speaking skills.

3) Antonym — Synonym (Vocabulary)
8 actors, min. 3 girls, 5 boys. This play is a vocabulary-building exercise using antonyms and synonyms and aids in developing reading and critical thinking skills.

4) Even and Odd Numbers (Math)
8 actors, min. 4 boys, 4 girls. This play defines even and odd numbers and uses them to solve addition and subtraction reasoning problems.

5) Lines and Shapes (Geometry)
9 actors, min. 4 boys, 4 girls. This play defines lines and shapes and their application in basic geometry, with discussion of their use in everyday life.

6) Fossils (Life Science)
9 actors, min. 4 boys, 5 girls. This play highlights how fossils are created and lays the foundation for concepts of archeology and prehistory with discussion about the role of fossils in documenting how people and animals lived in the past.

7) Vitamins (Human Body)
15 actors, min. 2 girls. This play defines vitamins and introduces basic nutritional principles related to normal mealtime diet

8) The Planets (Earth Science)
14 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. This play introduces the planets of our solar system, defining them in terms of surface temperature, atmosphere, orbital path, size and distance from the Sun.

9) Home Sweet Biome (Geography)
12-36 actors, min. 2 boys, 2 girls. This play highlights the biome and lays the foundation for concepts of ecosystem and discussion about the impact of human beings on natural environments.

10) A Child’s Day in Rural America, 1876 (History)
8 actors, min. 3 boys, 5 girls. This play explores the life of a typical farm family in late 19th-century America, highlighting the need for self-sufficiency and inter-dependence with discussion of the significant role children played in the household economy.

11) What a Government Does (Citizenship)
25 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. This play highlights government functions and services and introduces basic principles of civic responsibility with discussion of the common good, individual and group rights and role of laws.

12) “Get Me Information, Please!” (Current Events)
15 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. This play highlights sources of information about current events with discussion about how news is gathered, processed and distributed via major print and broadcast media.
 

“NOW I GET IT!”
12 Ten-Minute Classroom Drama Skits
for Science, Math, Language & Social Studies, Vol. 2

by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.
_____________________________________________

*  Focused Learning Exercises to Boost Comprehension
        and Creativity in the Elementary Classroom  *
 

1) The Almighty Apostrophe (Syntax)
8 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. This play introduces the apostrophe and its usage with verb and pronoun contractions.

2) Let’s Write a Poem! (Writing)
11 actors, min. 6 boys, 5 girls. This play introduces the basic elements of poetry and related terms such as meter, rhyme, limerick, haiku and free verse.

3) Holy-Holey-Wholly Cow! Homonyms & Homophones on the Loose! (Vocabulary)
8 actors. This play introduces homonyms and homophones, first defining them and then providing examples in usage.

4) The Metric System Rules! (Basic Math)
8 actors, min. 3 boys, 5 girls. This play introduces the metric system, defining basic units of measurement in length, mass, volume, area and temperature, along with providing conversion formulas.

5) Fractions (Using Math)
8 actors, min. 3 boys, 5 girls. This play introduces fractions and gives examples of their everyday use, along with the concepts of equivalent fraction and least common denominator.

6) How Birds Fly (Life Science)
6 actors, min. 3 boys, 3 girls. This play explores the phenomenon of bird flight, covering basic bird anatomy and physics of flight with particular reference to feathers, wing shape and flight pattern.

7) Magnets Are Magical! (Physical Science)
9 actors. This play introduces the basic theory of magnets and related terms such as magnetic force, micromagnets, poles, lodestone and repulsion/attraction.

8) Sources of Energy (Earth Science)
8 actors, min. 3 boys, 5 girls. This play introduces the concept of energy storage and transfer, along with terms including potential and kinetic energy, thermal energy, solar energy, radiation, conduction and convection.

9) Time Zones (Geography)
6 actors, min. 2 boys, 4 girls. This play introduces international time zones, along with concepts of longitude, latitude, Greenwich Mean Time, International Date Line and absolute location.

10) Governments of the World (Citizenship)
12 actors, min. 4 boys, 8 girls. This play introduces the basic types of political systems and, using analogy, their application to modern society.

11) Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 (History)
15 actors, min. 5 boys, 10 girls. This play recreates the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which was the first gathering in the United States that issued a formal call to establish the legal and economic rights of women, including a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote.

12) Recycling:  Taming the Plastic Monster! (Current Events)
8 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. This play introduces recycling — specifically the theory and process of recycling plastic — and explores related topics of pollution, landfills, toxins and the impact of recycling on the environment.
 

PLAYS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL:  Legends from the Bible and Jewish Folklore
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.

The land of Israel has long been a fertile spawning ground for some of the Greatest Stories Ever Told — now dramatized for your stage! Plays of Ancient Israel presents 12 exciting one-acts from the Bible and the treasure trove of Jewish folklore:  Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the Whale, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, King David’s Harp, Ruth and Naomi, Samson and Delilah, the Wisdom of Solomon, tales from the Talmud, origins of Chanukah, Purim and more. Audiences of all faiths will find these plays riveting and inspirational!

1) King David’s Harp
7 actors, min. 2 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. An elderly carpenter wanders for years in search of King David's harp, the instrument that accompanied many of the original Psalms. What he finds is more than a miracle!

2) Jonah and the Whale
13 actors, min. 2 boys, 1 girl. 15 minutes. A humorous look at the reluctant prophet and his maritime misadventures on the way to saving Nineveh.

3) Noah’s Ark:  Falsehood and Wickedness Hitch a Ride
13 actors, min. 1 boy, 1 girl. 15 minutes.  A midrash folktale that uses symbolism and talking animals to communicate some essential truths about human nature.

4) Dare to Be a Daniel!
21 actors, min. 8 boys. 15 minutes. Thrilling story of courage in the face of tyrants and certain death.

5) Ruth and Naomi:  The Healing Power of Friendship
10 actors, min. 1 boy, 3 girls. 15 minutes. A friendship that changed the course of Biblical history.

6) Samson and Delilah
21 actors, min. 2 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes. The popular tale of betrayal and redemption told to the music of the gospel hymn "Samson and Delilah".

7) Tales of Angels
21 actors, min. 6 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. Learn about the Biblical origins of angels and the Lamed Vav — and how they keep our world on its divine course.

8) What Is a Brother?
19 actors, min. 13 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. The stories of Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers plus the one brother tale with a happy ending:  Menasseh and Simon.

9) The Prophet and The Rabbi
7 actors, min. 4 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. The prophet Elijah appears in many forms throughout the ages as a messenger of God, instructing scholars and protecting the poor and weak; here he instructs Rabbi Zev on the true meaning of patience and good will.

10) The Wisdom of Solomon
16 actors, min. 6 boys, 9 girls. 15 minutes. Two argumentative young girls discover the ancient wisdom of King Solomon works in modern times, too.

11) Chanukah:  Come Light the Menorah!
17 actors, min. 7 boys, 3 girls. 20 minutes. A modern boy bored with religion discovers the exciting battlefield origins of this holiday celebrating divine victory over religious persecution.

12) Hail, Queen Esther!
16 actors, min. 6 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. This play is in the form of a purimshpil — a play from medieval times that tells the story of Purim, the holiday celebrating Queen Esther’s role in preventing a massacre of Persian Jews during the 6th century B.C.E. Watch as a troupe of Italian actors in the year 1567 present a purimshpil for the local Duke and Duchess.
 

PLAYS OF ISRAEL REBORN:  Legends of the Diaspora and Israel’s Modern Rebirth
by L.E. McCullough, Ph.D.

Twelve original plays drawn from the flowering of Jewish culture during the Diaspora and the modern rebirth of Judaism worldwide — tales of Hasidic wit and wisdom, Midrash and Haggadah stories, legends of the Kaballah, Sephardic and Ashkenazic folklore and more.

1) The Alphabet of Creation
25 actors. 15 minutes. This tale from the 13th-century Zohar:  The Book of Splendor depicts letters of Hebrew alphabet vying to be the letter God would use to create the world. Concludes with the alphabet song Oyfn Pripetshok (On the Little Hearth).

2) The Bird of Happiness
10 actors, min. 2 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. This Middle Eastern folktale of a boy chosen king of Israel contains narrative elements associated with the Biblical Exodus from Egypt and the Jewish holiday of Shavuot that commemorates Moses receiving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.

3) Two Goats, Two Sisters and a Beggar King
21 actors, min. 5 boys, 5 girls. 15 minutes. Three folktales from Poland and Iran that show how faith in God can give even an ordinary person power to alter people, nature and even history itself.

4) The Golem of Belmont Boulevard
13 actors, min. 7 boys, 4 girls. 15 minutes. The medieval tale of an artificially-created man that inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is recast in a moden setting.

5) Rachel the Clever
7 actors, min. 2 boys, 2 girls. 15 minutes. This Eastern European story contains several elements of the best world folktales:  a smart and sassy heroine who wins the heart of a king, a scheming mother-in-law, a plot that turns on mistaken identity and plenty of riddles.

6) Nitwits and Numskulls:  Outwitting the Oppressor
19 actors, min. 5 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. Three tales celebrating the ways in which Jews during the Diaspora were forced to rely on their wits to survive oppressive social and political conditions — The Silent Duel, The Great Lie and the The One-Eyed Cadi

7) Tales of the Baal Shem Tov
17 actors, min. 7 boys, 4 girls. 20 minutes. The founder of Hasidism, Israel Ben Eliezer (1700-60)  — the "Baal Shem Tov" — was a spiritual healer and wonder worker able to transcend time and space and look deep into the human heart.

8) The Wise Men and Women of Chelm
11 actors, min. 6 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes.  This village in eastern Poland has for centuries provided some of the funniest and most fantastic stories about silly people anywhere.

9) “Next Year in Jerusalem!”
16 actors, min. 8 boys. 15 minutes. Dr. Theodor Herzl convenes the first World Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, August, 1897.

10) Di Goldeneh Medineh (The Golden Land)
14 actors, min. 6 boys, 2 girls. 20 minutes.  Solomon Smulewitz was a great Yiddish songwriter in New York at the turn of the 20th century, chronicling the experience of Jewish immigrants in song. Hear a great selection of Yiddish folk song including Kol Nidre, Shlof Mayn Kind, Shpilt-zhe Mir Dem Nayem Sher, Mayn Yingele, Eyder Ich Leyg Mich Shlofn, Ot Azoy Neyt a Shnayder, Vacht Oyf and Smulewitz' most famous song, Ellis Island.

11) Three Holocaust Tales
27 actors, min. 7 boys, 5 girls. 20 minutes. A perfect play for Yom Hashoah — Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day. The stories included here (Three Generals, The Third Blessing and A Child’s Dream) testify to the indomitable power of the human spirit and the strength of faith that often meant difference between life and death.

12) Israel Reborn
7 actors, min. 2 boys, 3 girls. 15 minutes. It is May 13th, 1948, the eve of the declaration of the state of Israel, and the members of Hatzor kibbutz greet a young visitor from the U.S. eager to learn about life on a kibbutz — and what it means to be an Israeli citizen.
 

* * * * MORE BOOKS COMING IN 2001!!!