Theater Merit Badge Pamphlet Theater Merit Badge

Theater


Requirements were REVISED effective January 1, 2019.

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  1. See or read three full-length plays.* Write a review of each. Discuss with your counselor the plot or story. If you chose to watch the plays, comment on the acting and the staging.
  2. Write a one-act play that will take at least eight minutes to perform. The play must have a main character, conflict, and a climax.
  3. Discuss with your counselor the safety precautions that should be practiced when working in a theater to protect the cast and crew. Then do THREE of the following:
    1. Act a major part in a full-length play; or, act a part in three one-act plays.
    2. Direct a play. Cast, rehearse, and stage it. The play must be at least 10 minutes long.
    3. Design the set for a play or a theatrical production. Make a model of it.
    4. Design the costumes for five characters in a theatrical production set in a historical time.
    5. Show skill in hair and makeup design. Make up yourself or a friend as a historical figure, a clown, an extraterrestrial, or a monster as directed.
    6. With your counselor’s approval, help with the building and painting of the scenery for a theatrical production.
    7. With your counselor’s approval, design the lighting for a play; or help install, focus, color, program, and operate the lighting for a theatrical production.
    8. With your counselor’s approval, help install, focus, equalize, program, and operate the sound for a theatrical production.
    9. Serve as the stage manager for a theatrical production. Document all cues and stage setups in your calling script.
  4. Mime or pantomime any ONE of the following chosen by your counselor.
    1. You have come into a large room. It is full of pictures, furniture, other things of interest.
    2. As you are getting on as bus, your books fall into a puddle. By the time you pick them up, the bus has driven off.
    3. You have failed a school test. You are talking with your teacher who does not buy your story.
    4. You are at a camp with a new Scout. You try to help him them pass a cooking test. He The Scout learns very slowly.
    5. You are at a banquet. The meat is good. You don't like the vegetable. The dessert is ice cream.
    6. You are a circus performer such as a juggler, high-wire artist, or lion tamer doing a routine.
  5. Explain the following: proscenium arch, central or arena staging, center stage, stage right, stage left, downstage, upstage, stage crew, flies, portal, cyclorama, stage brace, spotlight, floodlight, lighting control board, sound mixing desk.

*Watching plays on television, video, or as a movie is not permitted.


BSA Advancement ID#: 111
Requirements last updated in: 2019
Pamphlet Publication Number: 35959
Pamphlet Stock (SKU) Number: 35959
Pamphlet Revision Date: 2014

 
Worksheets for use in working on these requirements: Format
Word Format PDF Format
 

Blanks in this worksheets table appear when we do not have a worksheet for the badge that includes these requirements.


Page updated on: November 18, 2021



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