Pirate Skit Ideas
- "Treasure Island" is arguably the most famous pirate book in the world. If you want to use it, or a similar work of fiction, as the inspiration for a pirate skit, choose a pivotal scene to dramatize, followed by a swift conclusion. For example, you might dramatize the scene in "Treasure Island" where Jim overhears the pirates' plans to mutiny, warns his friends and helps them to win a decisive battle, ultimately resulting in the defeat of the pirates.
- There have been no shortage of swashbuckling pirate movies to provide inspiration for a skit. Whether you like the old-school Errol Flynn vehicles or the more recent special-effects extravaganzas, your storyline might follow pirates who are: driven to piracy by oppression (this might or might not be an idea for a company party); banding together to form their own civilization in some tropical paradise; searching for a dead comrade's hidden treasure; or who miraculously escape the hangman's rope, the captain's plank or the dagger of a treacherous rival.
- If you live in an area with a pirate legend, it might be fun to dramatize it in a skit. The legend of Blackbeard's lost treasure, of pirates drugging sailors' drinks and selling them as slave labor to outgoing ships -- also known as "shanghai" -- or the ghost legend of a hanged pirate, can be a lot of fun to put on. Be sure to have a chorus lined up, as well -- you can't have a decent pirate skit without a few stanzas of "Yo, ho ho" thrown in.
- The history of piracy exemplifies the truism that truth is often stranger than fiction. If you want your pirate skit to be educational, you might dramatize strange-but-true pirate stories, such as the capture and defeat of the maniacal pirate Blackbeard or the story of Jean Lafitte and his pirate kingdom of Barataria. This might also illustrate to children that, while it's fun to play at pirates, true piracy is just plain old crime, committed at sea.