How to Tweak Scripts

In a post a few months ago we talked about some of the places that we get ideas for skits and
performances. One of the place that we mentioned is online freebies. In that blog post we gave you
many of the sites that we have found scripts from, and that we have used to get ideas from. Today
we are going to tell you how we rewrite online freebies.
If you are just starting out as a clown you may want to stick to finding pre written scripts to use in
performances for awhile. When you have found your character and the characters of those who you
are performing with, it is easier to start by rewriting scripts and then begin to write your own material.
When we first started all of our material was either already written for us or we improvised, so that
we could reach our end result. We did not find this to be the best way for us to prepare for
performances so when we still had a leader over us but we were beginning to take on a large portion
of the work for ourselves we decide to go more off of pre-written scripts. All of these first scripts were
rewritten freebies.
Now on to how we rewrite online freebies. The first step is to find a script.
Finding a script
When finding a script to rewrite you want to look for scripts that fit under the theme of your
performance. Then you will likely want one or more of the next three things. The first is a good
message or way of demonstrating an idea in a skit. The other way that you can chose a skit that fits
under your theme, is to have a skit that you like but it is too short or you need to add more to it to
make it fit into your performance. There is one other thing that you can look for in a freebie skit, and
that is something that is mainly fun, remember you are a clown and it’s okay to sometimes have a
skit that is mainly for fun, so that neither you or the kids get bored. When you have finally chosen
your script you are ready to start rewriting it!
Rewriting
If you have a skit that you like the idea or message of, you take the idea that you like and make a
skit out of it. An example of this is when we did the “How Much is God’s Love” skit. With this skit we
had found a skit where they were trying to measure God’s love with measuring cup and then lead it
into an Easter skit. We were not doing this performance for Easter, so it would not make sense on
it’s own, so we wrote our own skit using that idea. We also added more ways of measuring like
spoons, cups, length, and time, so we could add to the main message.
One of the other options is for when you have a skit that you like, but that needs to be longer or that
you need to add more to, so that you can make to make it flow well. To do this you could go through
the script and add to lines so that they are still look good, but you will still fill your time slot. An
example of this would be to change a yes into a I would love to. How can I help? This is mainly used
to add more time to a skit, it also can add depth if there is not much. One of the other things you
could do is add more to a skit so that it flows into the next skit or it has a Christian message. This
would work well when added to the end of a prewritten script. Adding things like “What does this
mean for me?” or “What does that really mean?” can help your audience to better understand the
point which you are trying to get across.


The last thing that we have found for tweaking a freebie skit is to take one which is mainly a quick
and easy mainly funny one, and add a message if you can, or mainly make sure that it fits your
characters, (and we believe that this should always be one of your first priority when you are
tweaking one anyways), remember that what may sound great for one character may just sound
crazy (not in a good way) when coming from another one.


The main thing that we want you to take away from this is that it may take a few minutes, and a little
bit of effort to do so, but it is really worth it to tweak the freebies that you find, so that it fits you, your
characters, your theme, and your timeline. Trust us, you can tell, and it isn’t too much work anyways.
Good luck on your script tweaking adventures!   
Something Silly Clowns
(Cupcake and Dizzy)
Two clowns trying to spread God's love to everyone

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