Can be given in park, in woodland, or on lawn. Is suitable for schools, clubs, and patriotic societies. Can be given on the Fourth of July, or any day during Spring and Summer. Indoor production is also possible.
PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS
[PATRIOTIC PLAYS: THEIR USE AND VALUE]
THE primary value of the patriotic play lies in its appeal to the love of country, and its power to revitalize the past. The Youth of To-Day is put in touch with the Patriots of Yesterday. Historic personages become actual, vivid figures. The costumes, speech, manners, and ideas of bygone days take on new significance. The life of trail and wigwam, of colonial homestead and pioneer camp, is made tangible and realistic. And the spirit of those days—the integrity, courage, and vigor of the Nation's heroes, their meager opportunities, their struggle against desperate odds, their slow yet triumphant upward climb—can be illumined by the acted word as in no other way. To read of the home life of America's beginnings is one thing; to portray it or see it portrayed is another. And of the two experiences the latter is the less likely to be forgotten. To the youthful participants in a scene which centers about the campfire, the tavern table, or the Puritan hearthstone will come an intimate knowledge of the folk they represent: they will find the old sayings and maxims of the Nation-Builders as pungent and applicable to the life of to-day as when they were first spoken.
The patriotic play has manifold uses. It combines both pleasure and education. It is both stimulating and instructive. In its indoor form it may be the basis of a winter afternoon's or evening's entertainment, in its outdoor form it may take whole communities and schools into the freedom of the open. It should rouse patriotic ardor, and be of benefit ethically, esthetically, and physically. It should wake in its participants a sense of rhythm, freedom, poise, and plastic grace. It should bear its part in developing clear enunciation and erectness of carriage. To those taking part it should bring the exercise of memory, patience, and inventiveness. It should kindle enthusiasm for the things of America's past. In what way can national hero-days and festivals be more fittingly commemorated than by giving a glimpse of the hero for whom the day is named? Thus the patriotic play is equally adaptable for Fourth of July, Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, Columbus Day, and the hundreds of other days—not holidays—that lie in between.
If the patriotic play is produced in the right way it should contain the very essence of democracy—efficient team-work, a striving together for the good of the whole. It should lead to the ransacking of books and libraries; the planning of scene-setting, whether indoor or outdoor; the fashioning of simple and accurate costumes by the young people taking part; the collecting of suitable stage properties such as hearthbrooms, Indian pipes, and dishes of pewter. The greater the research, the keener the stimulus for imagination and ingenuity, two things that go to the making of every successful production. Fortunately, the patriotic play is inherently simple, its appeal is along broad general lines, so that it requires no great amount of money or energy to adequately produce it. And, as history is made up not of one event, but of a series of events, so an historical pageant is a logical sequence of one-act patriotic plays or episodes. The one-act patriotic play shows one hero or one event; the pageant shows, through one-act plays used in chronological order, the development and upbuilding of America through the lives of her heroes.
In its pageant form, the patriotic play, with dances, songs, pantomime, and spoken speech, lends itself to schools, communities, and city use, in park, in armory, and on village green: in its one-act form it lends itself to both indoor and outdoor production by schools, patriotic societies, clubs and settlements, and, last, but not least, the home circle. And in the hope of assisting teachers and producers to fit appropriate plays to appropriate occasions notes on the subject have been added to the individual plays in the table of contents.
THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS
(Outdoor)
THE PAGEANT OF PATRIOTS
EPISODES
[1. PROLOGUE BY THE SPIRIT OF PATRIOTISM]
[2. PRINCESS POCAHONTAS]
[3. PILGRIM INTERLUDE]
[4. FERRY FARM EPISODE]
[5. GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FORTUNE]
[6. DANIEL BOONE: PATRIOT]
[7. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN EPISODE]
Scene 1. Benjamin Franklin and the Crystal Gazer (1720)
The Dream Begins
Scene 2.Benjamin Franklin at the Court of France (1781)
The Dream Ends
[8. ABRAHAM LINCOLN EPISODE]
[9. FINAL TABLEAU]
[10. MARCH OF PLAYERS]
[PROLOGUE]
Spoken by The Spirit of Patriotism
People of ————, ye who come to see
Enacted here some hours of Pageantry,
Lend us your patience for each simple truth,
And see portrayed for you the Nation's Youth.
Spirit of Patriotism I. Behold
How at my word time's curtain is uprolled,
And all the past years live, unvanquished
As are the laurels of the mighty dead.
I am the spirit of the hearth and home!
For me are flags unfurled and bugles blown.
For me have countless thousands fought and died;
For me the name of "Liberty" is cried!
I am the leader where the battle swings,
I bring the memory of all high things.
And so to-day I come to bid you look
At scenes deep-written in the Nation's book.
The youth of all the heroes you shall see—
What lads they were, what men they grew to be.
How honor, thrift, and courage made them rise
By steps that you can learn if you be wise.
First, Pocahontas in a woodland green;
Then life among the Pilgrim folk is seen—
Thrifty Priscilla, Maid o' Plymouth Town,
In Puritanic cap and somber gown!
For the next scene comes life in Southern climes—
The Ferry Farm of past Colonial times.
Then Washington encamped before a blaze
O' fagots, swiftly learning woodland ways.
Then Boone with Rigdon in the wilderness
Dauntlessly facing times of strife and stress.
Crossing the Common in the morning sun
Young Benjamin Franklin comes: about him hung
Symbols of trade and hope—kite, candles, book.
The crystal gazer enters, bids him look
At all the guerdon that the years will bring.
The Vision next: Trianon in the Spring,
And Franklin honored by the Queen of France
With courtly minuet and festal dance.
Lastly, a cabin clearing in the West,
Where on a holiday with mirth and zest
Lincoln's companions take their simple cheer.
These are the scenes to be enacted here,
Shown to you straightway in a simple guise.
Youthful the scenes that we shall here devise
On which the beads of history are strung.
Remember that our players, too, are young.
All critic-knowledge, then, behind you leave,
And in the spirit of the day receive
What we would give, and let there come to you
The Joy of Youth, with purpose high and true.