Recommended Plays and Musicals for Cultural Festivals, School Festivals, and School Performances
Want to make unforgettable memories with your school festival play? We’ve got you covered with a variety of works, from fairy tales and musicals to anime and trending hits.
Disney titles, Studio Ghibli films, and beloved classic stories—each one is full of charm that will captivate your audience.
There are plenty that are fun to perform, too, so bring your class together to create a moving stage filled with acting, dance, and music.
It’s sure to become a memory you’ll cherish for life.
You’re bound to find the perfect piece for your class!
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Fairy Tale and Picture Book Parody Play (1–10)
Hamlet
The longest work among Shakespeare’s four great tragedies.
Because of its length, creating scripts and the like takes a lot of effort, but it’s a work that makes you feel the effort is worth it.
Since Tatsuya Fujiwara and Hikari Mitsushima also starred in a stage production, it would be good to use that as a reference when creating yours!
Run, Melos
When it comes to plays at school festivals, it has to be Dazai Osamu’s “Run, Melos.” Amid its straightforward story and development, lines that suddenly strike the heart appear—truly remarkable.
And since it’s so well-known, it might be interesting to add some ideas like a parody.
Momotaro
Momotaro is a story that virtually every Japanese person knows.
Precisely because it’s such a famous folktale, try performing it with various creative twists! It could be fun to write the lines in traditional local dialects or in foreign languages like English.
You might also tweak the characters or the plot to create an original Momotaro play and get the audience excited.
CATS
This is a musical play that has been performed in various venues, including the Shiki Theatre Company and elementary schools.
It’s the day of the special Jellicle Ball, when the elder cat chooses the purest Jellicle Cat.
Who will be chosen as the one cat permitted to live a new life? Become a cat dancing to be chosen, and captivate the audience!
The Cat That Lived a Million Times
The picture book The Cat That Lived a Million Times is famous for being a real tearjerker.
Many of you may have read it as children.
How about performing that story as a musical? The tale begins when the cat that lived a million times becomes a stray and meets a white cat.
It also sounds fun to put care into making the costumes and props for the feline characters and others.
Hansel and Gretel
It’s one of the famous works included in the Grimm’s Fairy Tales: a story in which parents, struggling after a long-lasting famine, abandon their children to reduce the number of mouths to feed.
The scene where the siblings, deserted in the forest, discover a house made of sweets is striking, and many of you may remember it.
In an age when getting enough to eat is rarely a struggle, this piece prompts reflection and will serve as a production that combines both fairy-tale charm and social commentary.
Anpanman
If you’re expecting young children from outside the school to attend, why not choose Anpanman—a big favorite among kids—as your play? It’s best to keep the story easy to understand, similar to the original “Soreike! Anpanman.” If there won’t be small children in the audience, you could instead create a story that includes inside jokes, which might make it more exciting.
Paying attention to the characters’ costumes and props like the Anpanman-go could also enhance the overall quality of the production.
