Theater Merit Badge

Requirements for the Theater merit badge:

1. See or read three full-length plays or scripts. These can be from the stage, movies, or television. Write a review of each. Comment on the story, acting, and 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. 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 production of a circus. Make a model of it.
   4. Design the costumes for five characters in one play set in a time before 1900.
   5. Show skill in stage makeup. Make up yourself or a friend as an old man, a clown, an extraterrestrial, or a monster as directed.
   6. Help with the building of scenery for one full-length or two one-act plays.
   7. Design the lighting for a play; or handle the lighting for a play under guidance.
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 a 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 pass a cooking test. He learns very slowly.
   5. You are at a banquet. The meat is good. You don't like the vegetable. The dessert is ice cream.
5. Explain the following: proscenium arch, central or arena staging, spotlight, floodlight, flies, center stage, stage right, stage left, stage brace, stage crew, cyclorama, portal, sound board.
6. Do two short entertainment features that you could give either alone or with others for a troop meeting or campfire.