Middle Mania: Imaginative Theater Projects for Middle School Actors (Young Actors Series)

I teach middle school drama to 8th, 7th, and 6th grade every day! Approximately 600 students rotate through my curriculum each year! The activities presented in MIDDLE MANIA have prompted me to revamp my whole approach in teaching drama. They are fun, creative, easy to do and feel a lot less stressful than continually preparing for large-scale productions. What a gift! Thank you for sharing, Maureen!!

Buy it used or spend 15 minutes on the web. A barebones sourcebook. As an art teacher who will now also be teaching a MS theater class, I was hoping for quite a bit more based on the reviews, but found it thin with ideas for acting projects and long on stuff I already do with my MS art students.

Maureen Brady Johnson's books  Middle Mania: Imaginative Theater Projects for Middle School Actors and ASIN:1575253291 Middle Mania Volume Two  are priceless! As a drama teacher, hired last fall to establish a new exploratory fine arts program, I needed practical hands-on ideas for 6th, 7th and 8th grade. For the first semester, I used the Bag of Puppets project for all three grades. The students loved the process, learned multiple skills from public speaking to scriptwriting and eventually performed their original puppet plays for the entire lower school. During the second semester the books again provided a wealth of practical project ideas. The students explored musical theater using the Rock 'n Roll Playwriting unit and songs by the Beatles. During our school library's month-long celebration of Dr. Seuss, the 8th grade used the ingenious "Musical Chairs" project to stage a readers theater performance. Each volume of Middle Mania contains detailed lesson plans as well as reproducible forms for student evaluation and reflection. I cannot imagine finding a more worthwhile teaching tool for years to come!

Drama got added to my music teaching schedule this school year and I had no idea what to do! I've never had a drama class in my life! This book saved me. The projects are interesting, fun, and involve the whole class. Better than that, the book spells out specifically what to assign when, things to watch out for in terms of management, and how to deal with assessment. I've seen lots of books with general ideas, but this book walks through projects day at a time with information about each piece.This book is a real lifesaver. I recommend it for anyone teaching drama, especially if you are new to the field or if it's not your specialty.

Maureen Brady Johnson's Middle Mania series helps students and teachers explore and create theater in excting new ways.The exercises are so ingenious that students will find themselves moving forward with projects that help them appreciate theater as the dynamic force it is.As a playwright I have used Middle Mania to help jump start my writing and I highly recommend both Middle Mania and Middle Mania Two.

Maureen Brady Johnson is a playwright as well as an experienced teacher with a fabulously creative mind. Her ideas fairly explode off the page. I guarantee these projects will open new ways of thinking and new approaches to acting. "Middle Mania: Imaginative Theater Projects for Middle School Actors" is a gift! - Robin Rice Lichtig (playwright)

Almost as soon as I began reading Johnson's book, I was thinking of individuals in our school with whom I could share it. Although it is written for theater teachers, it's useful for any teacher or administrator that might occasionally need an activity for community building. The book is written for middle school environments, but the ideas could easily be transformed for high schools or elementary schools as well. The chapters consist of seven different activities that promote involvement from all students, even the shyest, that are also fun for adult moderators. A few of the activities include Mask/Movement, Clan Drama: Solving a Mystery, and Rock `n' Roll Playwriting. Step-by-step instructions for developing and organizing the projects are broken down into chapter sections. I especially like the preface that summarizes each chapter and activity into single paragraphs. Following the activities, Johnson provides curriculum summaries, assignment sheets, grade assessment charts, and reflections on the book's projects. Every school should have at least one project. Highly Recommended.

Easy to use lessons, projects, and ideas for the middle-school drama teacher or coach. I liked that you could pick and choose what works best in your program. I think every middle-school teacher should own this book, not just drama coaches - the creativity and energy and response will enlighten any classroom.

This book is highly recommemded as it was invaluable in my planning for a grades 5-9 drama class (19 students).