Middle School Theatre & Margie Palatini

At my library we have a middle school program called Junior Friends.  The Junior Friends are students in the 5th – 8th grade who are interested in helping with community service projects for the library.  Through this program the kids manage a used book sale, create a newsletter, maintain a website, help us with basic shelf reading, assist with pajama story times, and perform plays for children and their families.

Theatre & Kids

When I started in my current position, the library was offering about one theatre show a year.  We are now up to a show for the fall, spring, and summer and the kids are continually begging me for more.  I always have to tell that three is plenty during the year.  On average we spend about 6 weeks practicing the lines and blocking the show during hour-long practices at the library.  Then I also work on sets, props, and costumes outside of that time.  We try to keep things pretty simple and once we started collecting some basic costume pieces we realized that they can be used again and again.

What is great about a program like this is that it’s two-fold.  We create an environment where middle school students want to visit the library and during that time we create stronger relationships with these kids.  Depending on the type of show we are offering, which varies with the seasons, we can have anywhere from a cast of 10 to a cast of 40 kids participating in the show.  I think it also helps that we guarantee that if a child tries out for the play they will always get a role.  I’ve created new roles and added plays to get this to work, but I think this is an important aspect for the children.  But, at the same time, the middle school students are also giving us another program when they perform the plays for the children in the library.

Reader’s Theatre

This spring I decided to make it very simple for myself and we are using three stories by the author, Margie Palatini.  Check out Piggie Pie, Gone with the Wand, Bad Boys, The Web Files, or The Cheese. All of these stories are already reader’s theater scripts making your job that much easier!

This is a great way to encourage middle school students to use the library in an unconventional way!