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© 2019 John Middleton
United States Copyright Office
1-8168934481
Herstellung und Verlag: BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt
ISBN: 978-3-7504-4822-3
Other plays from THE PLAYLET SERIES by John Middleton:
LUCKY CHARMS – a play in 10 scenes about LUCK for Years 6, 7 and 8 (Level 3/2)
STAND UP – a play in 8 scenes about MORAL COURAGE for Years 8, 9 and 10 (Level 4/1)
KEY CHAIN is a play for students in Years 6, 7 or 8 (Level 3/1). It is designed for a normal-sized English class and for students with varying interests in acting. Since there are 49 roles – none of which are really minor – students who enjoy acting can perform in several scenes and play to their heart’s content, whereas students who aren’t particularly keen on acting only have one role to master in one single scene. Every scene deals with a key, big keys and small keys, new keys and old keys, keys that lock doors and keys that open hearts, keys that are lost and keys that are found, keys that bring people together and keys that bring people apart. There are monologues, dialogues and scenes with as many as eight or nine performers. The themes are geared to the experiences of students today – such as friendship, bullying, infatuation and rejection – and offer young actresses and actors the opportunity to discover a wide variety of feelings while performing. The plots are believable and understandable, the language is idiomatic and easily accessible for English learners. KEY CHAIN works well when performed for smaller audiences: parents and other classes. But it can also be highly entertaining for a large audience. Performing time: about one hour. Of course, it is also possible to select individual scenes and perform them as simple skits outside the context of the KEY CHAIN. In that case it is still recommendable to create a suitable setting for presenting the skits to an audience. The true joy of performing a foreignlanguage play is to feel it click, to realize that the people watching the performance don’t only “get the picture”, they are also delighted to see a story come to life when presented in English by non-native performers.
– John Middleton, Hamburg, 2019
(Two MCs come out on stage, two girls.)
MC1
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, key lovers and key haters.
MC2
We are going to present fifteen scenes about keys.
MC1
Big keys and small keys.
MC2
New keys and old keys.
MC1
Keys that lock doors and keys that open hearts.
MC2
Keys that are lost and keys that are found.
MC1
Keys that bring people together and keys that bring people apart.
MC2
Hey, you know what I hate about the key to my house?
MC1
No, what?
MC2
I always lose it.
MC1
It’s important to have a second key.
MC2
Sure, but I always lose the second key, too.
MC1
Then you need a key with a built-in beeper that beeps whenever you are looking for it.
MC2
What do you mean?
MC1
If I lose my key, I pull out the beeper control and push it. And my key starts to beep. Like this…
(We hear a beep.)
MC2
But what if I lose the beeper control?
MC1
Then you need a beeper control for the beeper control.
MC2
And what if I lose the beeper control for the beeper control?
MC1
Then you need a beeper control for the beeper control for the beeper control.
MC2
And what if I lose the beeper control for the beeper control for the beeper control?
MC1
Then don’t lock your door.
MC2
That’s a good idea. Thanks.
(A boy, Jimmy, is standing in front of his bike. It is locked. He tries to open the lock, but something is wrong. He shakes the lock and is very angry.)
JIMMY
I don’t believe it! This is the second time this week that I lost the key to my bike lock. My parents are going to kill me!