Theater - The Unhappy Princess

Theater – The Unhappy Princess is an original play written for students in younger elementary grades. There are 15 parts: two narrators, Princess Isabelle, Barcus the dog, Tweeters the bird, two servants, King Isaac V (Isabelle’s father), Queen Iris (Isabelle’s mother), 3 friends, Prince Ivan (Isabelle’s brother), Laugh-A-Lot the court jester, and a wizard named Wizard.

Synopsis: Princess Isabelle learns about the true meaning of happiness through the help of her family, the servants and court jester, and her pets and friends.

Your students in grades 1-3 will delight in reading Theater – The Unhappy Princess as a Readers’ Theater or performing as a play. Students can share parts if there are more students in your classroom or they can double-up on parts if there are too few students. Students can also play other roles during this activity from helping with learning parts to making scenery and props, arranging the props, etc.

The story begins with Princess Isabelle who is very unhappy despite living in an enormous, enchanted castle with her beloved family: King Isaac V, Queen Iris, Prince Ivan, and her pet dog Barcus and bird Tweeters. She had just celebrated her eleventh birthday and invited all of the children in the Kingdom to her party.

As the play continues, many people and animals try to cheer her up and make her happy. There are favorite foods, presents, friends who want to play, an invitation to visit the country fair with knights in armor slaying fire-breathing dragons, and jokes and new tricks from the court jester. When nothing seems to work to make the princess happy, Wizard visits and hands the princess a box.

What’s inside the box?

How does Wizard get the princess to be happy after all?

You’ll have to read the play to find out.

Theater – The Unhappy Princess includes a Parent/Teacher Guide filled with questions to ask before reading, words to preview, questions after reading, tips on how to perform the play, and a list of extended activities to build understanding and enhance learning.

There are also student activities designed to teach the vocabulary introduced in the play and questions for student responses to ensure reading comprehension and foster critical thinking. To further understand the play, a story map activity is designed to help students identify the title, setting, characters, story problem, main events, solution, and theme or lesson. The final creative activity is for students to draw and color a picture of a prince or princess and to write their own story.

12-page resource with Parent/Teacher Guide and Answer Key.