Playmaking: Children Writing & Performing Their Own Plays

This book is a must for anyone just starting out with teaching theatre to children. It is well-conceived and presented, consistently keeping the reader involved in the "process." In addition to learning about playmaking as the story unfolds, Daniel Sklar provides brief lesson plan outlines to help us more easily utilize his information in a teacher friendly format.

I am an actor-educator working with inner-city youth in the Pittsburgh area and found this book to be very entertaining and practical. I have developed original plays with students before, but did not necessarily have a strategic method of the playwrighting process (I used improv). This book is about a playwright who teaches inner-city youth how to write and develop their own plays. He gives a sequential structure of lessons which are very helpful for planning. The style of the writing is enjoyable (as if you were reading this playwright's personal journal) and the author does talk about some of the intracies of working with inner-city youth. Sometimes I felt like the answers came too easily -- I wanted to hear even more about some of the struggles this playwright encountered and how he overcame them. Also, the ending was a bit too abrupt. With those minor concerns aside, I highly recommend this book to any theatre professional who works with youth.