For any high school drama club, choosing the right play is an art in itself. There is so much to choose from, so many options.
To make things a bit easier, we prepared a list of the seven most frequently performed high school plays, beloved both by students and directors, which includes timeless dramas, comedies, and classics that are perfect for school productions.
The list is sprinkled with backdrop suggestions we think would be perfect backgrounds for some of the most memorable scenes from each show.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Enchanted Forest Magic
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic that everyone loves, and it is easy to see why. It is a playful mix of romance, pranks, and fairy magic, and gives students a great opportunity to embody many colorful roles.
Every year, this play appears on “most-produced” lists. BroadwayWorld reports that it ranked #4 among high school plays.
The serene forest setting lets directors improvise with lighting and whimsical effects.
To capture that enchanted woodland atmosphere, our Lush Green Forest backdrop features trees with thick trunks and lush green leaves that seem to stretch endlessly throughout the forest. Surrounding these trees is a blanket of green grass. In the background, a blue haze creates an atmosphere that allows for the lighting to be adjusted for either a daytime or nighttime forest setting.
Another great option for this magical play is Blue Night Forest. It depicts deep blue trees and shadowy shrubs that frame the stage like a window into a magical night sky.
For the outdoors scenes, Queensland Garden sets up a stage with a white marble railing and red-and-white checkered stonework, surrounded by a neatly trimmed green garden filled with hedges, trees, and shrubs. At the center, it features a three-tiered fountain with a bright blue sky overhead and rolling green mountains in the distance.
The Greek Mythology backdrop has a painterly, classical look. It depicts Father Time stepping forward with his robes gathered, creating a sculpted and flowing presence. Behind him, the sun and moon hover over angels who are blowing their horns.
The Colorful Garden Arches backdrop frames the stage with arches that open onto a lush, green landscape. Beyond them, tall trees stretch upward while dense shrubs of varying shapes and sizes fill out the garden’s depth.
Alice in Wonderland: Whimsy and Wonder
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is often performed in schools because it brings fun and absurdity to the stage.
Students love dressing up as outlandish characters like the Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, and Cheshire Cat, and a colorful set can help you match their playful energy.
Our Queen of Hearts backdrop is a castle-themed item that perfectly fits the theme of the play. It features a storybook castle with red turrets and a bold red heart at the entrance. In front of the castle is a bright green garden with hedge-maze shapes and red roses that lead the eye toward the grand castle set against a clear blue sky.
Another piece that really captures the story’s peculiar vibe is the Fairytale Castle backdrop. It depicts a distant castle with blue turrets beneath a softly clouded sky. In the foreground, a colorful garden scene includes flowering shrubs, a swan pond, and a short lamplit path leading toward the castle, with a cherry tree anchoring on the rightmost corner.
We also offer a Giant Mushroom Forest backdrop that suits Alice’s journey through gardens and woods. It depicts a whimsical mushroom grove, filled with oversized caps in stripes and polka dots, shifting from bell-shaped to flat and from domed to concave. The palette runs from fiery reds and sunny yellows to cool blues and deep purples.
Colorful Clocks Montage fills the scene with an array of clocks, each with its own face and dials, splashed in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. Everything pops against an azure-blue background that gives the whole image a slightly surreal, dreamlike look.
These eye-catching scenes help awaken the sense of “down the rabbit hole” adventure.
A Christmas Carol: Victorian Ghost Story
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is a popular winter show for high schools because it teaches about kindness and features strong roles like Scrooge, Cratchit, and all the ghosts. Many high school drama teachers and students love its timeless holiday message and attire.
To set the 1840s scene, consider including wood walls, hearths, and foggy London streets.
For example, the Nighttime European Street backdrop creates a rustic city scene with two buildings framing the road and a central passage that opens toward taller, gray silhouettes in the distance. A blue-gray, clouded sky and the warm glow of yellow streetlamps give it a moody evening atmosphere.
English Winter Village backdrop features a snowy London-style street lined with Victorian-inspired shops and homes, their roofs and roads dusted in fresh snow. Little touches like wreaths, wall lights, and a sign for the inn really add to that warm, old-school winter vibe.
The Christmas Victorian Parlor backdrop brings the audience indoors to a warm holiday room, with a decorated Douglas fir, wrapped gifts on one side, and a glowing fireplace at the center. Large windows, framed by red swag drapery, show snowfall outside, while stockings and a wreath add classic Victorian Christmas detail.
Full Moon Graveyard depicts a dark blue night sky with a bright full moon and a graveyard silhouette spread below it. Weathered tombstones, bare trees with reaching branches, and an iron fence with an open gate create an ominous, ready-for-entrance stage picture.
Finally, Classic Victorian Parlor places the stage inside a refined sitting room, with two tall windows dressed in long, colorful drapes and book-lined wooden shelves flanking either side. A large marble fireplace anchors the center beneath an ornate framed picture, and the whole scene feels carefully composed, rich with folds, edges, and old-world symmetry.
When set against an evocative backdrop, the enchanting world of A Christmas Carol truly comes to life. The Victorian ambiance is enhanced, immersing audiences in the magical spirit of the holiday season that Charles Dickens so masterfully created.
Romeo and Juliet: Classic Tragedy
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet rarely leaves the high school stage.
It appeals because many students study it in class and want to play Juliet or Romeo, or simply find the themes of young love, feuding families, and fate are especially interesting.
Here are a few exteriors that can nicely capture Verona’s setting.
The Charming European Street backdrop presents a lane lined with earth-toned houses, and a gray-brick church with large windows at the center. A small fountain spills on one side, while tidy patches of grass and shrubs, green mountains, and a blue sky streaked with white clouds complete the scene with crisp lines and gentle, repeating curves.
Another option is the Spring Village backdrop. It depicts a peaceful town square with a central fountain and a castle rising behind it, just past a long green roof. Towering mountains weigh one side of the view while a bright blue, cloud-dotted sky opens the other. This scene gives a sense of old Italian charm.
A moonlight backdrop like Monte Carlo shifts the scene to an elegant nighttime mansion exterior, framed by a fountain and the sea beyond. Two dim streetlights carve the fountain into clean silhouettes, and the deep blue sky blends smoothly into the water for a sleek, refined night look.
The Red Parlor Scrim Interior backdrop can hint at the famous balcony scene while wrapping the stage in rich red, with twin staircases rising toward a balcony guarded by gleaming gold railings and an ornate doorway.
The atmosphere of the play should look and feel romantic. Serenity Night Garden backdrop depicts a quiet exterior that features a cream-toned fountain, accentuated with flanking sculptures, and flowers spilling down the wall in layered cascades above a luscious green lawn and a path.
The Crucible: Dark Colonial Drama
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a staple in many high school programs because it explores themes of power and morality.
A simple wooden village street or tavern interior works well with the theme of the play. For example, the Smokehouse Interior backdrop shifts the stage into a compact rustic room with wooden walls. A table and shelves sit among barrels, coiled ropes, and hanging hooks, with the small, tucked details giving the space a utilitarian texture.
Scary Nightime Village can stand in for the play’s version of Salem. It captures a twilight street boxed in by houses on both sides. A turreted castle rises in the distance like a dark, as an amber moon climbs into place.
For indoor witch-hunt scenes, the Abbey backdrop creates a solemn interior with a stone-brick back wall and stained-glass windows lined in red panels. An open hall sits in the foreground, where left-side arches shape a passage and give the whole space a structured rhythm.
Grim backdrops like Gated Graveyard, which is framed by a see-through iron fence that splits into an open gate, drawing the eye into a cemetery of tombstones softened by low, wispy fog and washed in full-moon ligh work well with the overall vibe of the play.
Twelve Angry Men: Intense Jury Room
Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men sees many high school productions for its small cast and message of justice. The entire play, or most of it, is set in a single jury room during a hot day. High schools often choose it to give lots of students strong roles.
When it comes to backdrops, a plain Courtroom Interior can serve as the jury room walls because it establishes a classic legal setting in deep brown wood, with a single window on one side and a shut door on the other. The clean panels, hard edges, and neatly separated sections leave room to drop in a judge’s table and witness stand.
The Wood Panel Interior backdrop is a rich, dark-brown wall of classic paneling, laid out in tidy squares with a clean line running across the top. Its crisp edges instantly read as formal and institutional as the play itself.
Our Office Interior backdrop also gives you a spacious, modern room with concrete walls and oversized windows that look out into the night sky. Its simple, structured geometry keeps the scene flexible and readable.
Courthouse Exterior backdrop, on the other hand, shows a grand civic façade with concrete steps and tall columns that instantly set an official tone. Green trees soften the structure’s severity, and the crisp, institutional lines make it flexible enough to read as a courthouse.
Our Town: Small-Town of Everyday
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is a classic American tale often performed in high schools. It is the ultimate small-town story. The stage usually has a minimal set, often just a bench or fence.
For town scenes, the Town Square backdrop depicts an equestrian statue rising from a circular garden, then opens into a street where buildings frame both sides. On the left, a yellow manor with red blinds sits beside a mustard house with a blue roof, while streetlights, shrubs, and trees soften the lines beneath a blue sky.
For the calm, rural scenes, Forest Silhouette depicts woodland, with green tree silhouettes rising from a matching strip of green grass. There is a gray sky hanging behind the trees, and the way the layers and sharp shapes come together really sets the mood.
For standard outdoor or indoor scenes, Red Brick Wall is a straightforward wall look built from tight rows of bricks and crisp mortar seams, with darker stains and subtle wear that make the surface feel lived-in rather than flat.
The Horizon backdrop let the actors’ storytelling shine with its shimmering blue waves in the foreground, and a clean horizon line that lifts into wide blue sky and soft, fluffy white clouds.
Each of these plays brings its own magic to the high school stage, and our vast backdrop collection has options to match. Picking a backdrop that echoes the show’s mood helps students and audiences feel transported into another world.
No matter which play your high school chooses, there is a backdrop that can set the scene. So the next time your drama club picks its annual show, browse these suggestions and find the perfect backdrop to make the opening night unforgettable.
