Activity: Pirate Wants a Ship

As part of every production, our Drama School develops a number of games and activities related to the show for use in workshops and residencies. Many of them are very specific to creative drama classes, but others work in any setting, and some of those we post here for you to enjoy.

As part of our Bluenose curriculum, we have this variant on musical chairs with a pirate theme.

Pirate Wants a Ship

Have players sit in chairs in a circle, with one chair-less person, the Pirate, in the middle. The object of the Pirate is to get a chair, the Ship; the objective of everyone else is to not let this happen, while frequently switching chairs with other people.

At the start of the game, the Pirate approaches any player and says "Pirate wants a ship." That player has the choice of two replies:
1) "Go ask my neighbor!" Then the Pirate must move on and ask someone else.
2) "Aaaargh!" At this, everyone gets up and switches places, and the Pirate tries to steal a seat.

While this is happening, anyone can switch chairs at any time. The players seated in the circle try to make eye contact with each other and silently agree to switch without being caught by the Pirate.

If the Pirate steals a chair during the switch, the player left standing without a chair becomes the new Pirate.

Once you've played this way for a bit, you can add these options to make the game a little trickier. Give the Pirate three more options for what they can choose to say:
1) "The wind blows right!" All players must try to move on seat to their right.
2) "The wind blows left!" All players must try to move on seat to their left.
3) "Tidal wave!" All players must run to the middle of the circle like a wave, and then must find a seat.