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American Girl: Molly
Molly's Theater Kit
Perform "War on the Home Front," a 20-minute play about Molly and her friends in 1944. This kit includes four Play Scripts and a Director's Guide that gives directions for making costumes, scenery, and more!
48 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1994
About the author
Valerie Tripp
274 books453 followersValerie Tripp is a children's book author, best known for her work with the American Girl series.
She grew up in Mount Kisco, New York with three sisters and one brother. A member of the first co-educated class at Yale University, Tripp also has a M.Ed. from Harvard. Since 1985 she has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her husband teaches history at Montgomery College.
Right out of college, Tripp started writing songs, stories, and nonfiction for The Superkids Reading Program, working with Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl. For that series, Tripp wrote all the books about Felicity, Josefina, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen and many of the books about Samantha. She also wrote the "Best Friends" character stories to date, plays, mysteries, and short stories about all her characters.. Film dramatizations of the lives of Samantha, Felicity, Molly, and Kit have been based on her stories. Currently, Tripp is writing a STEM series for National Geographic and adapting Greek Myths for Starry Forest Publishing. A frequent speaker at schools and libraries, Tripp has also spoken at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, The New York Historical Society, and Williamsburg.
She grew up in Mount Kisco, New York with three sisters and one brother. A member of the first co-educated class at Yale University, Tripp also has a M.Ed. from Harvard. Since 1985 she has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her husband teaches history at Montgomery College.
Right out of college, Tripp started writing songs, stories, and nonfiction for The Superkids Reading Program, working with Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl. For that series, Tripp wrote all the books about Felicity, Josefina, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen and many of the books about Samantha. She also wrote the "Best Friends" character stories to date, plays, mysteries, and short stories about all her characters.. Film dramatizations of the lives of Samantha, Felicity, Molly, and Kit have been based on her stories. Currently, Tripp is writing a STEM series for National Geographic and adapting Greek Myths for Starry Forest Publishing. A frequent speaker at schools and libraries, Tripp has also spoken at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, The New York Historical Society, and Williamsburg.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 10, 2026
MOLLY: (firmly) Susan, we are at war with Ricky. During a war, you don't worry about a little lie here or there.This American Girl Theater Kit contains four scripts along with a Director's Guide for a play focusing on the plot of Meet Molly.
The Scripts
In this play, Molly and her two friends (Linda and Susan) are getting ready for Halloween. As they brainstorm about their costumes, Molly's annoying older brother keeps interrupting and making fun of them.
Later, the girls realize that Ricky has a crush on Dolores - a high school girl - and decide to tease him.
RICKY: (loudly) You'd be perfect as the Three Little Pigs. Or you could be the Three Bears. How about the Three Stooges?
And so begins the prank war...but when one of them goes too far, can they ever repair their relationship?
MOLLY, LINDA, and SUSAN: (chanting loudly) Ricky and Dolores up in a tree,
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Dare I say it? I think I like the play better than the plot of the original book. In Meet Molly, the prank war really, truly spirals out of control and both siblings go right for the jugular.
But in the play version, the pranks are still malicious but there isn't enough time to really up the ante too much.
For this play, there are three acts with six characters (Molly, Susan, Linda, Ricky, Dolores, and Mrs. McIntire (aka "Mom")). I liked the stage direction in the story but also how it wasn't overly blocked. There's directions but also room for the kids to be creative.
The Director's Guide
Not only do we have the four scripts but also there's a director's guide included in the theater kit.
This guide begins with an introduction to Molly and her world - to provide some framework for what the play is based upon. We learn about what it was like in wart times and how children entertained themselves.
The next section is Planning the Play, which opens with a brief summary of the plot for Molly's play and then goes into details regarding what is needed for a play (i.e. actors, stagehands, directors, as well as playbills and programs).
From there we learn about the six characters - their age, personality, and a brief background - as well as what it means to be a director. For the director's role, I really liked how this guide focused on how a director helps build the play (rather than criticize or control the actors) and it provided tips for how to do that.
Then we learn a few more things about performing a play, like what blocking is and how stage directions work.
We get an overview of period appropriate Props, Sets, and Costumes that relate to this play (though, the kit does mention that you don't need to do these for a fun night, these are optional extras).
And finally, the guide ends with a braid tutorial and an explanation for how to make paper hula skirts.
Displaying 1 of 1 review