Classroom Drama: Turning Books into Plays

What is guaranteed to inspire healthy debate, creative teamwork, and at least a few giggles in the classroom?  Staging a dramatic performance! 

Whether it’s budding elementary-age thespians, middle-schoolers confronting their first classic novel, or students in a high school theater arts class, students learn a lot about themselves and their subject matter when they write and perform plays based on the books they’ve read. 

Of course, kids can learn a great deal about nearly any topic just by reading books.  But if asked to write and act out scenes from those books they’re bound to learn even more.  Dramatizing books helps students dig deeper.   Details are important on stage.  The costumes have to be right, the set has to be right, accents and dialects have to be right.

But don’t copyright issues arise when teachers and students “borrow” material from books to create plays?  Are teachers and students allowed to turn books into plays without permission from the books’ authors or publishers?