PictureBook Plays

“The arts are, above all, the special language of children, who, even before they learn to speak, respond intuitively to dance, music and color.”
- Dr. Ernest Boyer
 Former United States Commissioner of Education &
President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Presumably written as a resource for absolute beginners, Take a Bow!, by Nina Czitron, is a series of 25 stories proceeded by five basic warm-ups.

If you’re looking for easy stories to turn into plays and for some reason have never heard of such classics as The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks then this is the book for you! Okay, yes, that was my poor attempt at sarcasm. Honestly, this book is not very helpful, even for beginners.

Each story is broken into sections, with each section interrupted by italicized suggestions like “Make sure Goldilocks puts on her hungry face and her tired face as she walks through the performance space.” And “Make sure she gobbles up the last one as ravenously as possible (it will usually make all the children laugh and will often help if you do it, too).” Similarly useless directions are in every story. In fact, this book is written in such a way as to encourage exactly those things which are neither effective nor educational in theatre with young children: dictating their choices and going for cheap laughs.

Even the section “End-of-year-plays” is a set up for a product over process experience. The author states that an end-of-year play “will give your students a sense of closure on the school year.” This is a false statement: it gives their parents and teachers a sense of closure, not the children. Students this young are perfectly happy–and will learn more–in an environment where they are encouraged to make their own interpretive choices, including how to show emotions and characters using their bodies. Should this lead to an informal “sharing” if parents arrive early for pick-up, children will then feel a sense of pride at sharing their new experiences with their families. But creating a play as a structured (and therefore judged), dictated, and inflexible event with such young children is not something I would recommend.

Should you wish to use drama as an aid to exploring emotional discovery and empathy for 4-6 year olds, The Dramatic Difference, by Victoria Brown and Sarah Pleydell, is a great book for you. Should you wish to explore simple theatrical or language-based activities that have a big impact, stay far far away.

Here’s what this book will do for you:

• It will guide you through the major concepts of storytelling with children into some very specific examples of how teachers have taken this idea and incorporated it into their curriculum.
• It will offer up extended dramatic story ideas for 3-6 year olds (However, many of their examples are too complex for three year olds to understand intuitively.).
• It is a book you must read cover to cover before using.

What it won’t give you:

• Solutions for transitioning from story-telling moment to story-telling moment. I found myself picturing a flustered and overwhelmed teacher attempting to keep twenty 3 year olds calm and focused while spraying their faces for “feeling the ocean,” remembering what part of the story came next, and moving them over to another area of the room for listening to appropriate music while using finger puppets.
• Ideas for simplifying. Their dramatic stories have a high number of tactile props that could be overwhelming for someone who has never used drama. They fail to offer ways to address ideas without props. Plus, most of their dramas take place over several days with many chapters. They failed to offer up solutions for 20 minute one-shot deals.
• Techniques for moving beyond mimicry and repetition into interpretation. All the dramatic stories are set up in such a way that children mimic the same movements and use the same props to represent the same things. (Like a wall covered in identical works of art, but each stamped with a different child’s name.) There seems to be very little opportunity for children to interpret the stories through drama.

Several times, the authors bring up a program they created with grant aid called “Singing to the Monster.” This program clearly illustrates what they love above all: using dramatized stories to explore and discuss emotions. What worries me about their technique, however, is it does not seem readily accessible to a classroom teacher. I scribbled in the margin of page 30 (of this 165 page book):

“There is a lot of initial exposition in this book but little promise that it will teach me how to lead these sessions. If I had no idea how to lead drama, I would be pretty scared right about now.”

Let me emphasize that little note up there: as an experienced theatre teacher and early childhood educator, I would be very nervous about trying these extended dramatic adventures. They last for 3-5 sessions (that’s 20 minutes a day for three to five days!). And in each session there are multiple props, tricky transitions within the space, and potentially complicated emotional responses. Personally, I would want an expert drama therapist to conduct these sessions with my students along with the help of aids, and that’s coming from someone who is not shy about doing challenging work with children.

Teachers are frequently just as shy about performing as students. The Dramatic Difference is a wonderful resource for experienced drama teachers who want to take their story telling in a new direction or are designing artist-in-residence programs for preschools. But, if you’re new to including drama in your curriculum, you’ll be better off looking for alternative simpler resources.

I stumbled upon this delightfully funny book, Stuck in the Mud, just published in February of this year.

One morning, a mother hen discovers one of her chicks is missing and stuck in the mud. She jumps in to rescue her but gets stuck as well. One by one, the farm animals jump in to the rescue, each getting stuck. Until, at the end, as we all hoped and expected, the little chick reveals that she wasn’t stuck at all. And out she hops.

The pictures are campy, but not too cartoonish, and the excitement level of the story is catching. The characters are clear, as is the story line. And, of course, it opens up a great discussion opportunity about responsibility, practical jokes, and honest mistakes. Not to mention, of course, farm animals.

This book is perfect for a round of PictureBook Plays:

• There are multiple characters who each get their own acting moment.
• The story is clear and to the point.
• There is one overall objective to the story.
• The use of animals means it is easy for actors to choose new and different characters, if they so desire
• The illustrations add to the story and offer additional interpretive opportunities

Happy Reading!

I excitedly ordered the hard-to-find children’s book, Sam Pig at the Theatre, part of a British series. Alas, that’s the last time I trust Amazon’s claim of age range. It is not for children 2-4. In fact, I’d likely read it to a five or six year old. It does, however, answer the question “what is theatre?” in story format.

Sam Pig and his family are invited to a play on Midsummer’s Eve. They join the rest of the farm animals in the horse’s barn for a home-made performance of Cinderella. Now, here’s where it gets exciting. Unlike much of live adult theatre today, the audience gets to participate. In the ball scene, for example, they all dance. Sam Pig himself gets to dance with Cinderella, who runs away only to leave behind a little straw slipper. The Sow tells him he must try the slipper on everyone in the barn to find out who it fits. When he protests, she reprimands him that “This is theatre and it’s all pretence.” And so he plays along.

The book ends with Sam and his family trundling home.

“So that’s a theatre!” said Brock. “It was grand! And you, Sam Pig, were the Prince!”

Sam said nothing. All his thoughts were on the little piglet called Cinderella whom he had kissed my the light of the turnip lanterns.

“But it’s all pretence,” murmured Ann, and the others echoed, “Yes. All pretence.”

This, of course, delightedly explains how actors become actors: they fall in love with the cross between fantasy and reality. It may not be a picture-book, but it’s still a good read, and very appropriate for starting a discussion about theatre, pretend, real life, and stories.

If your child has never been to the theater, I recommend starting with a local children’s theater performed by either adults or children. In fact, theater performed by children can be the best introduction for your young child. You may not enjoy sitting through Alice in Wonderland as interpreted by 8 year olds, but your child will love watching big kids on stage. And the audiences in children’s plays will have a greater understanding if you only last 15 minutes before you need to get up and leave.

If you go to children’s theater performed by professional adults, make sure it’s age appropriate. The box office should know if a show has been designed for middle school students or 4 year olds. As with any parenting choice, use your judgment, but most theaters are good at determining the age range that will enjoy a show. They may know about a potentially “scary” moment that you wouldn’t think about. For example, however tempting it might be to go see A Christmas Carol with your whole family in the wintry days of December, there are ghosts (particularly the ghost of Christmas future) which could terrify a small child and turn him or her off of theater for a very long time.

In general, a play with anything in it that is not recognisably human has the potential to scare your child.   This includes “big head” characters and animals.  Try to find children’s theater where you can always see the actors face, and the less unusual make-up the better.  Most of all, do your research.  The Diary of Anne Frank is a beautiful show and if your five-year-old can sit still that long, there’s no reason she can’t go see it, but you should know in advance what material will be discussed in the play and prepare appropriately.  Kids always absorb much more than you expect!

I have begun what seems like a futile quest: quality picture books about acting. There are plenty about dance and music, but very few about the theatre. I will be hunting them all down (out-of-print ones too!) to determine the best ones to use with your students.

We begin with, Beverly Billingsly Takes a Bow, by Alexander Stadler.

Beverly, a little gray animal that vaguely resembles a cross between a mouse and hippo, receives a box of dress-up clothes for her birthday. She loves them so much, that we are told, “Her parents never knew who would show up at the dinner table–jungle explorer, mad scientist, or tropical bird.” We soon discover that her teacher will be holding auditions for the school play. Beverly prepares “The Banana Song” which she practices diligently. But, after witnessing the amazing auditions of the children before her, she gets stage fright and can’t go through with it. She ends up being cast as “shrub” and “wall.” Her father eventually utters the famous lines, “there are no small parts, only small actors,” which causes Beverly to get to work contributing in other ways. In the end, she saves the day by whispering the correct lines to the leading lady who has suddenly suffered her own bout of stage fright.

Advertised for children ages 3-7, it read a lot like an Arthur book, with a little less gusto. The illustrations are cute, but add little to the story line beyond a literal interpretation of the words.  The sentences are short and descriptive, but leave the character of Beverly a little one-dimensional.  What I find disappointing about this book, though, are the adult assumptions that have been placed on a child’s world:

1. Beverly gets stage fright at her audition. Although Stadler describes Beverly looking out at the audience and feeling frightened by the number of people watching her, this moment is over-powered by the preceding descriptions of the other auditions: nothing short of impressive and fearless. As such, we can only assume that Beverly is scared not because of the audience, but because of her apparent lack of talent. In reality, children get stage fright not because they think they’re not as good as other actors, but because they have never stood in front of an audience before. Only with age do children begin to feel self-conscious of their performances because they have witnessed performances they believe to be superior to their own.
2. Beverly is sad because she only gets to say one line. In my experience, this sadness at not getting to play a particular part passes quickly. The cast has so much fun acting that they don’t even think about the relative size of their roles. It is only with age that we actors begin to covet others’ lines and need to be told, “there are no small parts, only small actors.”  If Stadler really felt he wanted to illustrate this point, then Beverly should have been given the ability to audition without fear and still only receive her two little roles.

All in all, this book at least covers what it is to be in a play, including helping with costumes, advertising, and playing a character. Due to the weakness of the storyline, it’s not a great read for circle time, but it couldn’t hurt to put it in your library for children to pick up on their own.

Picture books are a dime a dozen these days, but really great picture books are still diamonds in the rough.

Back when I didn’t have a toddler to chase around, you could often find me spending hours in the children’s book section looking for the perfect picture books for PictureBook Plays. Books that have interesting stories with opportunities for multiple players. Books where the pictures compliment the story and tell their own story too. Books with pictures that I wouldn’t mind framing and hanging on my wall. Books with words that can be equated to great works of literature.

And although a picture book can be a quick read, the shelves are stuffed full of thousands of options and I don’t have the patience to systematically read them so I would just pull books at random. Probably not the best technique, but the most fun and I was usually rewarded with a gem by the end of my hours of reading.

Yesterday, I discovered a fantastic new site, LookyBooks. They have convinced 200 authors and illustrators to allow them to put their picture books, in full, on their site! You can browse through and actually flip through an entire book. The images are small so reading the words can be a little tricky, but it means that you can start your hunt from home if you’re strapped for time and can’t get out to the store. Or, like me, would spend my time in the store chasing my toddler up the stairs instead of reading books!

It also reminded me that The Gingerbread Man is a great story to use for PictureBook Plays (it was on the front page when I discovered LookyBooks!). Although I often end up doing The Gingerbread Man around the holiday season because of cultural connotations, it doesn’t actually make any references to a holiday.

If you use this story, make sure you set up a “track” for running around in circles when they chase the gingerbread man. Or, if you’re worried about collisions, this is the time to teach your actors about “running in place.” There can be multiple Gingerbread Children and there are many other characters to chase the Gingerbread Creations around.

I don’t love the following version. It’s too wordy for easy storytelling and the pictures tell no more story than the words.  But, there are so many versions of this folktale that you should be able to find one you like.

My daughter came with me while I taught. She’s only 14 months old, but she still participated in the movement exercise, Guided Imagery. Here they are being wind together: