Little Green Riding Hood
(a reader's theatre script)

Animal-rights defender Little Green Riding Hood is on her way to visit her rabbit-hunting granny who lives in the woods. Meanwhile, Mr. Wolf, who recently became a vegetarian, is on a mission to expose the contents of a mysterious sack. This reader's theatre script is part of a series of multi-levelled scripts that allow kids at different reading levels to read and perform theatre together. Find out more about reader's theatre, look for teacher resources, or buy this title at Benchmark Education.

I wrote a reader's theatre script about the black plague in the Middle Ages after going on a reader's theatre scriptwriting course in Auckland. When I sent it to Benchmark Education in New York, the publisher (who was called Jeff) said he didn't want my 'plague' script but that he noticed I'd previously written twisted fairy tales, and would I be interested in writing one of those for him instead. What do you think I said? No thanks or yes please?

Well, I've always been keen on wolves and I feel sorry for them having such a bad reputation in fairy tales. I'd recently been reading a book about gray wolves being driven to extinction in Yellowstone National Park, and how decades later, after people realised that the ecosystem was suffering from the lack of wolves, they were re-introduced to the park. What a cool story! I wanted to use wolves in my reader's theatre script, so I played around a bit with reversing everybody's roles in the Little Red Riding Hood story. Suddenly the wolf had converted from the 'big bad wolf' to a struggling vegetarian and the sweet, gentle granny had turned into a gun-toting rabbit-killer. Little Green Riding Hood is an avid 'greenie', which is how she got her name. My favourite character in this story is Mr. Wolf. Who's your favourite?

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