Readers Theatre presents literary scripts for two or more readers who communicate to an audience the full intellectual, emotional, sensory and aesthetic context and experience of the literature. The scripts themselves are drawn from all types of literature: plays, short stories, poetry, novels, essays, diaries and more.

Sometimes referred to as “Theatre of the Mind … Theatre of the Imagination.” Readers Theatre is a close relative of radio drama in its insistence upon audience participation through the imagination.

The readers may stand or sit—or even move a little if such movement is consistent with the mood and ideas of the literature. The majority of the action occurs not onstage, with the readers, but with the audience, in their minds and imagination. Thus, Readers Theatre is presentational, not representational as in conventional theatre.

Presentations are often quite simple, staged only with stools or chairs and sometimes reading stands. Scripts may be fully or partially memorized but are usually read by the readers who hold or carry them throughout the presentations.

Lighting, costumes and scenery may enhance the presentation; however, they are kept simple and suggestive. Music is accept able if integral to the text and not distractive to the oral interpretation.

Readers Theatre offers many benefits to participants, providing a creative outlet that is at once enjoyable and educational and offering an opportunity to explore the wide horizons of literature. It is easy to understand why this oral-interpretational art is becoming a much-utilized tool at all levels of education. READERS THEATRE ALSO IS GREAT FUN!

Now offered at the Centro Cultural, Readers Theatre is open at no expense to English-speaking and bilingual adults who are, or who will become, members of the Mark Twain Library.

Please call 207-7577 for more information.