The Big Bad Misunderstood Wolf?

Last Lesson Liam, playing the character of the Big Bad Wolf,mentioned that he felt that the Wolf should not be all bad and so I would like to present this video to the group to try and encourage this idea further:

Adding a different story to the character of the Wolf, not necessarily this one, would add another dimension to our play and make it unique to the other stories that the children are likely to already have heard. 

Narration

The following is the narration by Momma Pig for the first scene of the Pigs getting ready. I like the fact that I have been able to include the techniques of repetition, alliteration and rhyming as I feel these work especially well in Children's theatre.

And so the little pigs got ready to begin their wild adventure,

They tied their shoe laces to the left,

They tied their shoe laces to the right,

They brushed their teeth to the left,

They brushed their teeth to the right,

And they fought,

And fought,

And pushed,

And shoved,

And dipped,

And dodged,

And tripped,

And slipped,

And weaved,

and wacked,

And ducked,

And dived,

for a place in the mirror to brush the hairs on their chinny chin chins.

Story Telling

For Children's Theatre we have been practising our 'Story telling' voices, this is more so important for me playing Momma Pig as she will be the main narrator. For this, each week we have been taking part in workshops, from them I think that that the most important thing about story telling is connecting with the audience; this will mean keeping the audience engaged, trying to make eye contact regularly to as many of the audience members as possible and using your voice especially creating different voices sometimes for characters and other times to create atmospheres, also returning to the voices to show the same character or same location / atmosphere. Similarly with all children's theatre, I think it is also important to remain extremely happy at all times, whilst still appropriate of course.

Character - Momma Pig

 

For our production of 'The Three Little Pigs' I am playing The Mother Pig, she is the typical Dame, camp and effeminate but at an instantly butch and lastly of course a man in drag, moreover she is friendly, caring however fairly fearful leading her to be only moderately protective of her children. I think it's fair to say that she would rather save her own bacon than throw her chops in dangers way to save her boys.

Momma Pig is also the leading narrator of the play meaning she will quite often break the fourth wall and interact with her audience, possibly having use her voice to create an atmosphere for imagination and 'magic' to take place. 

Pigs Portfolio

                

Choosing a Story

It is really important to make sure we use our questionnaire results effectively so that we can create something that our target audience will like. These are my too considerations;

The Gingerbread man

Imagination - If we used puppetry to create the Gingerbread man, this element would require imagination as well as that most of the characters are animals and so this too would require imagination.
Comedy - I see the elderly couple whom bake the Gingerbread man as comedic characters and it would be easy enough to give their characters jokes. I also think that food puns could be comedic however I'm not entirely sure if our target audience would understand puns. 
Songs - The phrase 'Run run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man' can be, and has been many times before, turned into a song and could be used through out.
Adventure - The adventure would be one through the town, starting in the couple's cottage, then with the passing of the pig, cow, horse, (or whatever characters we decide on as different versions include different characters) and finally the fox in the river.
Magic - A lot of the magic will come from the scene were the Gingerbread man is brought to life with the elderly couple. I see a lot of potential for this.

The Three Little Pigs

Imagination - Similarly we will be playing animals, which we could use masks for, and so imagination will need to be used for the audience to believe in the characters.
Comedy - As our main characters are Pigs I'd like to make lots of jokes along the lines of Bacon, ham and pork which could be incorporated. Once again puns could also be used although the same problem still occurs.
Songs - Songs will be a little different for the pigs as I believe we will need to be more independently creative as there are less resources online for the pigs. Although we do still have the phrases 'Not by the hairs on my Chinny Chin Chin' and 'I'll Huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down' to work with.
Adventure - The Adventure with the pigs will be from moving out of one house, gathering their materials, and each pig travelling to the next's house. The character of the wolf could also add some adventure.
Magic - More of the magic with the pigs would be in building the houses, there are so many possibilities and ways that we could do this.

Questionnaire

Due to the fact that Children's theatre is very different, we have handed out a questionnaire to a focus group in order to find out what it is our target audience actually want in a performance. The results are as follows:

1.      Ages -

• 7-11

2.      What’s your favourite story? 

• Gruffalo      ////  
• Bear hunt //  
• Harry potter //
• Others included I love you so much and The Twits.

3.      Who’s your favourite character?  

• Goofy      /// 
• Olaf        /// 
• Belle       //  
• Others included Timone and Pumba, Red riding hood.

4.      What’s your favourite type of story? 

• Adventure
• Funny

5.      What do you think makes a good story?

• Funny bits
• An Adventure
• A Happy ending
• Songs

6.      What’s your favourite TV show / Film / Book ? 

• Frozen                  ////
• Harry potter  //
• Charlie and the chocolate factory      //
• Matilda              //

Collectively as a theatre company, we decided that these results, amongst other things, that within our piece, we should try to at-least incorporate these five elements; Imagination, Comedy - most of which may be slapstick -, Songs, Adventure - in which we hope to incorporate via audience interaction - and finally magic.