Supporting primary schools to produce their own show
Primary Play Your Part is a project providing newly commissioned playscripts to primary schools to use as their festive show. The brand-new playscripts are written specifically for KS2 primary aged students to perform. Along with a range of supporting online resources and a virtual CPD session, the project aims to guide primary schools through the process of creating their own in-school productions.
The playscripts are free for all UK state primary schools. If you are a private school or a school outside the UK, please contact primary@oldvictheatre.com for more details.
One playscript is titled The Present and written by Laura Dockrill, the other is titled The Sweet Life and written by Sabrina Mahfouz.
Taking the themes from The Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol, both pieces explore the ideas of the choices we make.
Each playscript has 60 speaking roles and has been designed for KS2 students (Years 3–6) to perform as their festive play. They both have a running time of approx. 30 minutes.
We would advise The Present for Upper KS2 (Years 5 and 6) and The Sweet Life for Lower KS2 (Years 3 and 4). See samples of each playscript below, as well as character lists including line allocations for each role.
Download a sample of The Present playscript
Download a sample of The Sweet Life playscript
Download the character list for The Present
Download the character list for The Sweet Life
Laura Dockrill
Laura Dockrill is an award-winning writer, speaker and illustrator from Brixton, South London.
Her first book for children, Darcy Burdock was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of The Year Prize and Carnegie Medal. Her critically acclaimed memoir What Have I Done? is being adapted for TV.
Laura’s first film, Goldfish, received a BAFTA nomination for Best Short. She has been commissioned by the National Theatre, Young Vic, Bush and Donmar Warehouse. Laura has written unique work including immersive tours of archive celebrating the work of both Roald Dahl and Tove Jansson for the Southbank Centre. She adapted Robin Hood for the Watermill Theatre and her show for children, Dust, won an OnComm Award at the 2022 Off West End Awards.
Her first novel for adults, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You, was published in June this year.
Sabrina Mahfouz
Sabrina grew up in London and Cairo and is a writer of books, plays, TV and poems.
For TV she has recently worked on HBO’s Full Circle, A24’s BEEF and #1 Happy Family USA.
In theatre, she recently wrote for Danny Boyle and Boy Blue’s dance adaptation of The Matrix, Free Your Mind. She was an inaugural Writer in Residence at Shakespeare’s Globe, where she co-wrote an adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. She wrote and performed her cross-genre show A History of Water in the Middle East at the Royal Court.
Her numerous other plays have garnered a Fringe First Award, Herald Angel Award, Old Vic New Voices Award, BBC Best Drama Award, Radio Academy Award, UK Theatre Award and an Offie Award.
Sabrina is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and has written, edited and been anthologised in a number of books for adults and children.
A ‘How to put on a show at your school’ guide and four accompanying videos have been created to support primary school staff when putting on their in-school productions. Access to these will be granted once applications are completed.
We will also be holding a free online teacher CPD on Wed 06 Nov, 4.30pm-6pm. This is open to all schools on the programme. The session will be led by industry professionals and will provide a toolkit for putting on a show at your school. You will be sent a link to sign up to the CPD once your application has been accepted.
Applications for Primary Play Your Part are now closed.
- The Primary Play Your Part playscripts are available to all UK state primary schools for free. If you are a private school or a school outside the UK, please contact primary@oldvictheatre.com for more details
- This programme aims to work with young people who have limited access to the arts. We are particularly interested in working with young people who are from backgrounds unrepresented in theatre, including those from global majority backgrounds, lower socio-economic backgrounds, and disabled young people
- The Primary Play Your Part project is open and accessible to all
- We welcome applications from SEND schools
- You can adapt the playscript content to suit your students and school
If you would like to discuss your school’s access requirements or have any questions before applying, please contact: primary@oldvictheatre.com.
If you have any questions, please contact: primary@oldvictheatre.com.
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