Provide your homeschool with a drama script for kids, and you will see learning happen without your children even knowing. Performances bring language arts to life. When your children rehearse and remember lines of plays, skits, or other readings, they are practicing sentence syntax and how to read with emotion. They are interpreting the written word, practicing demonstrative body language, and considering their audience. They are building self-confidence, overcoming fears of public speaking, and learning to read feedback from viewers. They are discovering purpose for reading and writing and—most definitely—enjoying themselves while learning!
Your entire family will enjoy these royalty-free English play, skit, dramatic reading, and pageant scripts for children, which are arranged according to difficulty. Skits require little or no rehearsal and are often quite funny. Readings take fewer people and some rehearsal, while plays require more people and lots of rehearsal. Near the end of this page, you will find a few plays for advanced actors or older teens and a section for Christian scripts. At the very end, you will find resources for supporting your children as they explore acting. Together, we’ve provided hours of creative art fun.
Dive into drama and you’ll see how theater entertains not only the audience, it entertains the performers too!
Free Skits for Kids
- Annie, Jr.: Based on the book, Annie, by Thomas Meehan. The classic tale of little orphan Annie.11 characters.
- Camp Skits: “Nothing makes an assembly period, overnight campfire, or family night more fun than camp skits. They are a great way to include a dramatic piece in your camp program. They also provide an opportunity for both campers and counselors to have some great fun. Most of the skits listed here require minimal preparation and can be easily adapted to accommodate groups of all sizes.”
- Songs, Skits, and Yells: “Most of these songs, skits, and yells have been taken from various places around the internet. The original source is indicated where known.”
Free Readings for Kids
- Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?”: Complete script for a dramatic reading for two people. A sound file is available too, so you can learn to get the timing right.
- Generic Radio Workshop: Vintage Radio Script Library: Online collection of scripts from the Golden Age of Radio.
- Poetry Out Loud: A collection of poems to be performed out loud.
- Readers’ Theater Editions: “Reader’s Theater Editions are free scripts for reader’s theater (or readers theatre) adapted from stories written by Aaron Shepard and others—mostly humor, fantasy, and world tales from a variety of cultures. A full range of reading levels is included, with scripts aimed mostly at ages 8–15.”
Free Play Scripts for Middle Schoolers
- Aellea Classic Movie Scripts: Scripts and transcripts to classic movies (and others) made before 1970.
- The Land of Lost Stories: The story is about technology preventing kids from reading classic children’s stories, so the story characters are discarded onto an island where they long to return to the “hearts and minds” of kids.
- Little Women: Classic movie script from 1933, RKO Radio Pictures Inc., directed by George Cukor. Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Script by Sarah Y. Mason and Vicor Heerman.
- Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up: This classic play, by J. M. Barrie, was produced at the Duke of York’s Theatre on December 27, 1904 and ran for 145 performances.
- The Princess Bride: Are there any sports in it? Are you kidding? It has fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, True Love, miracles, and more! Based on the book by William Goldman and the movie directed by Rob Reiner.
- Rinse the Blood off My Toga: “Rinse the Blood Off My Toga,” by Johnny Wayne and Frank Schuster—with apologies to William Shakespeare (and to Francis Bacon, just in case).” Features the character of Flavius Maximus, Private Roman Eye.
- Sasha and the Pearl (The Puppetry Home Page): “Although ‘Sasha and the Pearl’ was written as a marionette play, it can easily be performed with other puppets as needed. As for characters, I have left them purposefully vague in some cases to allow for the greatest amount of interpretation. Have fun and let me know what you think!”
Free Advanced Scripts for High Schoolers and Mature Actors
- The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Based on the classic story by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1892). Complete script for those who would like to do an olde English play.
- The Oxford Shakespeare: The 1914 Oxford edition of the “Complete Works of William Shakespeare ranks among the most authoritative published in the twentieth century. The 37 plays, 154 sonnets and miscellaneous verse constitute the literary cornerstone of Western civilization.” Find links to 37 of
Shakespeare’s plays here. - Saint Joan: By George Bernard Shaw (1924). “Joan of Arc, a village girl from the Vosges, was born about 1412; burnt for heresy, witchcraft, and sorcery in 1431; rehabilitated after a fashion in 1456; designated Venerable in 1904; declared Blessed in 1908; and finally canonized in 1920.” Access the script to perform her story here.
- Screenplays for You: “Welcome to ‘Screenplays for You,’ famous collection of free movie scripts and screenplays! Fast and secure site, responsive design, exclusive updates and no dead links – enjoy it….” Screenplays are listed alphabetically.
- Waiting for Godot: A play by Samuel Beckett (1953). The basic plot revolves around two characters who have been told they must wait for Godot, though they aren’t sure who he is or what he looks like. Many opportunities come their way, but they turn them down because they might miss Godot.
Free Christian Play Scripts for Kids
- The Baker’s Dozen: A Saint Nicholas tale told by Aaron Shepard. In the Dutch colonial town later known as Albany, New York, there lived a baker, Van Amsterdam, who was as honest as he could be.
- The Birth of Jesus: “A lively skit about the people and times during the birth of Jesus.” Skit for ages 9-14.
- Christmas Around the World: A Christmas Play: A simple Christmas pageant, written by Leanne Guenther, with lots of built-in flexibility, so it can be performed by a family or a large group.
- The War Prayer: “Twain wrote the story in 1904–5, but after trying just once to publish it, he set it aside. He wrote a friend, ‘I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth’…. Whether due to suppression of truth or in part to Twain’s own reluctance to seem too radical, the story was in fact published only after his death. It appeared at last in 1923 in the collection Europe and Elsewhere, edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. The story drew new attention during the Vietnam War, with that conflict’s echoes of the earlier Philippine involvement.” Adapted for Reader’s Theater by Aaron Shepard.
Resources for Homeschoolers on Producing Plays
- Fake Blood Recipes: Here are some recipes for you to make your own realistic-looking fake blood. Real blood is reddish-brown, so you may need to alter the amounts of ingredients for the desired effect. Keep in mind, fake blood is messy, and some of these recipes may leave stains, so use with caution and allow plenty of time for drying.
- Hard Choices: Casting your play: Award-winning screenwriter, curriculum writer for Children’s Ministry Deals, and founder of Righteous Insanity, John Cosper, shares tips for how to determine who will play the parts in your production.
- The History of Costumes: From Ancient to 19th Century: This is a great resource for both building background knowledge about the history of theatrical costumes and for finding images of costumes by time period and culture.
Additional Homeschool Resources
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Homeschooling High School Electives
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