Customer Reviews

Break a Leg!: The Kid's Guide to Acting and Stagecraft

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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Break A Leg!: The Kids' Guide To Acting & Stagecraft by Lise Friedman (former dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and an Adjunct Professor, new York University) is a charmingly presented, authoritative, resource-filled "how to" book for young actors and actresses from grade school through high school who would like to act their school theatrical productions, in community theater, the professional stage, or in television and film. Individual chapters address simple warmups, learning to project one's voice, theater games, staying in character, and much more. Break A Leg! is the perfect gift book for aspiring young performers and a highly recommended addition to school and community library reference collections!

What a great book! If you do theatre with kids, this is a great resource. The engaging format draws young readers into the text, has lots of excellent pictures, and provides sections about all aspects of theatrical production, including design and technical theatre. We do Shakespeare with 6th graders and have found this book to be a gold mine of activities and information for theatre kids and adults. Bravissimo!

I bought this book to gain new ideas for a drama class which I teach. This book is written for kids that are interested in a career in acting, but I have found some really great information and ideas that I can use as a drama teacher and I am also going to encourage my students to read parts of this book! It is very well laid out, starting with the basics of the acting craft and then building all the way into an explanation of how to get started in the industry. All along the way, the main text is highlighted by quotes from real child actors as well as interesting side notes on various subjects. As someone who has been acting in community and professional theater since I was four years old, I was surprised at the amount of information in this book that was either new to me or written in such a way as to make me totally re-think things which I already knew. I would definitely recommend this book to any child interested in acting, parent of a child interested in acting or drama teacher who works with children.

I checked this book out at the local library and after renewing it twice, I decided I had to buy it. After going to 4 bookstores that did not carry it (or even anything similiar) I realized Amazon was my only hope. Book came much faster than expected.It was also far cheaper than I thought it would be and the book was in tip top shape! I'm a former theatre actress, who is now an elementary school teacher, and I have to say my students LOVE this book. It is absolutely perfect at peaking the interest of young stars.

A good book to supplement our middle school homeschooling. Fun activities, and it's easy for kids to understand and self-propel through the book. I also teach an arts camp during summer and spring breaks, and I will be using the activities there, too.

I've used this book for two years with my 5th-6th grade acting students that I had once a week. It's an easy read for them, but it explains things so clearly. We focused on a chapter a month throughout the year. Many of the games, exercises, and warm-ups I had already written into my syllabus so the book just reinforced everything they were studying. If there were any questions we could refer to the book. I added a few more things of my own while doing brief theatre history things. This book covers everything basic in acting as well as technical aspects and even a chapter on auditioning. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and it led to some good discussions.

My youngest niece is a big movie buff, and has a dream to be in one someday. She LOVED getting this...