It hit me that anagrams could be presented as the children’s game Hangman. Here is one example of this. Admittedly this may be overly elaborate, but just to paint a picture...

On the stage stands a platform with a hatch. Above it hangs a rope with a noose. This is a nice set up for some good old-fashioned medieval family entertainment! The magician points out that the hatch is held in place by three wooden pegs. Also on the stage is a blackboard.

An assistant dressed in a executioner's outfit escorts the magician onto the platform and places him on top of the hatch. She puts a black bag over his head and puts the noose around his neck and pulls it tight. She then goes to stand by the pegs.

A spectator, who is thinking of a secret word, stands by the blackboard. She is asked to draw a line for every letter in her word. Now the magician calls out a letter, which he thinks the word contains. He is correct and the spectator puts the letter in the appropriate spot over one of the lines (maybe just one letter if there are duplicates, otherwise the word could reveal itself to quickly). This continues until the magician finally makes a mistake. The executioner pulls out one of the pegs and the hatch trembles! But the show must go on so the magician continues to name letters, again correctly. Then he fails again and the second peg is removed. Now only one peg holds the hatch closed so no more room for mistakes. But he continues. When there is but a few letters left he calls them out rapidly and finishes by revealing the entire word. Finally, the executioner frees the magician and to prove what would have happened if he were wrong a third time, he removes the last pin and the hatch is opened with a loud crash. Dramatic, is it not!

Final thoughts. You could easily receive a few bits of information in these proceedings that you would not normally get when working with anagrams. First of all – you can find out the number of letters from the very start. Secondly, you can also find out the exact position of each letter during the process. With this you could probably increase the selection of words.

Side note: Kabala seems like another theme that goes hand in hand with anagrams.

Josef K (sorry for the long post)

That's a pretty clever presentation... lol

Caleb

I like Hangman. Sounds like FUN.