Readers' theater is minimal theater in support of literature and reading. There are many styles of reader's theater, but nearly all share these traits:

Readers' theatre is an interpretive oral reading activity. Students (or professional actors) use their voices, facial expressions and hand gestures to interpret characters in scripts or stories. Teachers and students may adapt favorite stories for readers' theatre through collaborative script writing activities and develop scripts from a variety of sources.

Sets tend to be representational or symbolic and the actors generally remain in one location, symbolically representing leaving or death by turning their backs on the audience.

The very fact that the name of the genre contains the word "readers" indicates that it has a strong focus on the text. Text is the most important concept in the Readers theatre.

Readers' Theatre come in two forms:

1. It can be used to theatrically represent a narrative piece or a poem. These are scripted in the traditional sense in that characters will generally read both what they say and DO. A narrator is usually avoided in favor of assigning narrative passages to the most appropriate character. In ideal situations, the text dictates the number of characters, but in reality some actors my end up playing two or more parts.

2. It can also be used to create a presentation on a given topic, pulling together material from all sorts of sources. This may include but is not limited to narrative material.