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MILE SQUARE THEATRE
Educational Guide
The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi
by Y York
Table of Contents
Page 2 About Mile Square Theatre / Preparing to Visit the Theatre
Page 3 About the Play / Discussion Questions About the Play
Page 4 The People Who Work at the Theatre
Page 5 After Visiting the Theatre / The Elements of Drama
Page 6 Classroom Drama Activities
Page 8 Fun Facts to Learn About the Animals in the Play
Page 9 Rewrite a Scene and Acting it Out
Page 11 More Activities
Educational Guide
The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi
by Y York
About Mile Square Theatre
Mile Square Theatre is located at the Monroe Theatrespace at Monroe Center for the Arts, 720 Monroe
Street in Hoboken, NJ.
Mile Square Theatre is a leading Northern New Jersey regional theatre, whose mission is to produce contemporary and classical works, while advancing theatre arts education for adults and children. Our vision
is to promote the performing arts and to deepen the region’s culture through the pursuit of our core values:
community partnership, collaboration, innovation and creativity.
MSTKids! is Mile Square Theatre’s project to produce theatre for young audiences. Now in its second season, MSTKids! is pleased to present The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi for students in grades K-4. Each performance will be followed by a question and answer period with the cast and creative team.
Preparing to Visit the Theatre
• Educational Content: The play and the accompanying educational materials are presented by Mile
Square Theatre to help teachers address basic literacy goals and the New Jersey Core Curriculum
Standards in Visual and Performing Arts, and to provide a bridge to Language Arts Literacy and Social
Studies. Even more importantly, we hope they bring joy to your classroom and inspire creativity in your
own teaching practice.
• Arrival: Please arrive at the theatre 10 minutes before curtain time. Come to the exterior door at the
south end of the building on Monroe Street. The door will be marked. Escort your students upstairs to the
second floor, where you’ll find the entrance to the theatre. Special needs students may enter through the
main entrance and take the elevator to the second floor.
• Restrooms: Remember to have your students use the restrooms before their visit. The show lasts about
60 minutes. Restrooms are available on the second floor near the theatre, however a teacher or adult
chaperone must accompany all children to and from these facilities.
• Food: Please leave all food and snacks at school
For many students, seeing The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi will be their first opportunity to see live theatre.
For those who have seen live theatre before, it will be just as important that they are reminded of “audience etiquette” in order to create a better experience for them and for their fellow audience members. The
following are a series of questions that may be helpful to ask your students before attending The Garden of
Rikki Tikki Tavi or any live performance that you might see with your classroom:
Questions About Seeing a Play
• How many of you have seen a play before? What did you see?
• What is the difference between seeing a play and watching a movie or reading a book?
• The person who wrote the play is called a playwright. She wrote the play based on a famous short story.
What story do you know that you would like to make into a play?
• Most of the characters in The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi are animals. How do you think the actors will
portray animals?
• What other stories or shows do you know where the animal characters act like people?
• This play takes place in a garden. What do you think the set will look like?
• If you made up a story that took place in your favorite place where would it be?
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Educational Guide
The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi
by Y York
About the Play
Y York is a prolific contemporary playwright and teacher who began her career in the
early 1980s. She has been writing plays for children since 1993, several of which have
been honored by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education with Distinguished Play
Awards for original scripts as well as for stage adaptations from literature.
The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi is a loose adaptation of the short story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi which
was written by the English poet, short story writer and novelist, Rudyard Kipling. Kipling’s
Rikki Tikki Tavi was published in 1895 in the second volume of The Jungle Book, a collection of children’s stories set in colonial India.
Rudyard Kipling
Born: 30 December 1865, Bombay, British India
Died: 18 January 1936, London, United Kingdom
Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907
Mile Square Theatre uses the inspiration of a Victorian English garden in colonial India as the setting for
the play. This imagery evokes Kipling’s story and portrays an enclosed, known environment that would be
recognizable to children of the time. Today’s students may equate the garden with their room, a park, their
classroom or a play area they know well.
Kipling was born in 1865 in Bombay, India to English parents. He was sent away to a boarding school in
England when he was only six years old. In both the story and the play, the baby mongoose, Rikki Tikki Tavi,
is separated from his parents by unforeseen circumstances and forced to deal with issues of identity, friendship, bullying and growing up that may echo Kipling’s experiences at boarding school and his later military
training.
Differing from the Kipling story, there are no actual killing scenes in Y York’s theatrical adaptation. The expulsion of the snake from the garden is achieved through mistaken identity, friendship, teamwork, bravado,
and a little bargaining.
Early in the play two of the characters find a nest of eggs. Since they are very hungry, they eat all but one.
The third character, a Tailor bird, advises against eating the eggs because after all, birds lay eggs. The
nest in question is eventually identified as holding the eggs of the Nag the Cobra, who threatens the safety
of all the inhabitants. In the end Nag agrees to leave the garden in exchange for his one remaining egg.
The behavior of each actor can be identified through the characteristics of the animals being portrayed;
but also through the eyes of childhood. Rikki Tikki is first and foremost an innocent baby learning from his
surroundings and separated from his parents. Secondly he is a baby mongoose, an animal that as an adult
is fearsome to cobras.
The overall message of the play is friendship, acceptance and teamwork against a common threat.
Questions About the Themes of the Play
• In this play, the protagonist, Rikki Tikki Tavi is alone in a new place for the first time without his parents
and brothers and sisters. How do you think he will feel?
• Rikki Tikki Tavi meets some new friends in the garden. One of them doesn’t want to share at first, but
later she changes her mind. Have you ever changed your mind about sharing? What was that like?
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• In the play, three characters, Rikki, Darzee and Chuchu find out they need to help each other to solve an
important problem. When do you think it is best to cooperate?
• While you watch the play, see if you can discover what is special about each of the characters. How does
that help them make the garden a safe place to live?
• Some funny things happen by mistake in the play. While you watch the play, see if you notice them.
The People that Work at the Theatre
A theatre company like Mile Square Theatre is comprised of many people who have different skills and
talents. The most obvious theatre workers, the ones we see the most, are actors. Here is a list of the many
artists and artisans who worked on The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi.
Director: The director of the play is the leader of the entire production. The director for The Garden of Rikki
Tikki Tavi is Chris O’Connor. He worked with all the designers (set, costumes, lights, props, and sound) to
determine what the play was going to look and sound like. The director decides who the actors will be for
the show and helps them answer questions about their parts. A director also rehearses with the actors and
shows them where to stand and how to move onstage.
• How is the director’s job different from the actors?
Set Designer: Set designers are responsible for building the set. They determine what colors are used on
the set, how the flats come on stage, what the scenery will look like, how big to make the floor, and many
other details. Jen Price Fick designed the set for The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi. She drew pictures of the
set and made models to show to the director so they could decide together what the set would look like and
how it would work.
• What are some choices a set designer needs to think about?
Lighting Designer: a lighting designer decides what the lights will look like. Matthew Fick designed the
The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi lights. He installed the lights, pointed the lights in the right direc¬tion—this
is called focusing—decided the brightness and color of the lights and at what angle some of the lights
would shine.
• How do you think lighting colors make a mood for a scene?
Costume Designer: a costume designer decides what the costumes will look like. Melanie Burgess designed the costumes for The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi. She drew pictures of her ideas to share with the director. The costume designer is responsible for fabricating the costumes and decides what shape and color
they will be, shops for fabrics and different clothes items, paints some of the clothes and figures out how to
make masks, ears and tails.
• How is costume design different than clothing design?
Sound Designer: a sound designer chooses all of the sounds that you hear, and in this show, he also wrote
all of the music. Craig Woodward designed and composed the music for The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi. He
recorded it with the musicians, and played some of the music on his keyboard. If the play requires sound
effects, he will record those too.
• Why do you think the sound designer makes some sounds louder than others?
Stage Manager: a stage manager keeps the production organized. The stage manager for The Garden of
Rikki Tikki Tavi is Laura Cornish. Laura tells all of the people involved with the play when they should arrive
to work. She records in a prompt book all of the information about what the actors are doing. When the play
is performed she runs all the lights and sound from an area called the booth. The stage manager organizes
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all the meetings and communicates information to all of the designers. She makes sure everyone has a
script and makes sure the actors don’t change the show after the show opens.
• Why do you think it is important to make sure the actors don’t change the show after it opens?
Actors: Actors decide how their characters are portrayed; they decide what the char¬acters’ voices sound
like, how the character moves; actors get to pretend and portray the emotions of the char¬acters; actors
wear costumes and put on makeup. The actors in The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi all went to college to study
acting and this is what they do for a living. Actors try out for the parts in the play. Try-outs are also called
auditions. The actors must memorize all of their lines. Actors practice the play with the director in sessions
that are called ‘rehearsals.’ The actors have rehearsals almost every day.
• Many of the characters in the play are animals. How do you think the actors will portray each one?
• How would you change your voice to play Nag the cobra?
After Visiting the Theatre
The Elements of Drama
Just as in any good piece of literature, there are essential elements in any good play that must be present.
When watching The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi, look for the following literary elements in action:
Exposition: The background information—usually at the beginning of the play—tells us what we need to
know in order to follow the characters, the conflict and the plot.
• Who are the characters in the play?
• Who is Teddy?
• What descriptive words could you use to identify each character?
• What is the setting of the play?
• What did you learn about Rikki Tikki Tavi from his opening conversation with Darzee the Tailorbird?
• What did you learn about Darzee ?
• Did you think Rikki and Darzee would become friends? Why or why not?
• How would you describe Chuchu’s and Darzee’s friendship?
Plot: The events of the story
• What happens first? What happens next?
• Did anything that happened in the play surprise you?
• Why do you think Rikki wanted to leave the garden?
• What did you expect to happen when Nag saw Rikki wearing his cast off skin?
Inciting Incident (or “Complication”): The thing that happens that launches the conflict.
• What is the first thing that happens to cause a problem?
• How does Darzee feel about Rikki coming to the garden?
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• How do the animals feel about Teddy?
• What is the biggest problem that Rikki, Darzee and Chuchu try to solve?
Conflict: The struggle between the protagonist and the antagonist.
• The protagonist is the hero or main character in a play. Who is the protagonist in this play?
• The antagonist is the character that causes the biggest problem. Who is the antagonist in this play?
Climax (or “Crisis”): The turning point in the play.
• What was the most exciting moment in the play?
• What was the moment when you realized things might change for the better in the garden?
Resolution: The “solution” to the problem that the climax creates
• How did Rikki, Darzee and Chuchu convince Nag to leave the garden?
• How do you feel about that?
Have Fun! Classroom Drama Activities
Make Some Noise!
Kindergarten and lower elementary
In The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi each character makes some distinctive sounds. In this exercise, students
have fun creating sounds and sound effects related to visual cues.
Quickly read a story from a picture book to your class. Stop at every picture if the book is short, or choose just
the most exciting ones if the book is longer. At each picture, ask your students to imagine the sounds they
might hear in the illustration. In a picture of a cow in a farmyard there are lots of things besides “moos.” Chickens, a rusty weather-vane, boots in mud, the farm dog, the cow’s bell, a creaking gate, birds overhead, all
make a complete soundtrack. Have the students practice making the sounds while watching you “conduct”-indicating louder or softer, and eventually cutting the sound off like an orchestra conductor. Do this with each
picture.Then return to the beginning of the book and read it again, but this time the sounds happen automatically when each picture is revealed. Younger students may still need the “cut-off”, but older ones cut off on
their own when the page is turned. This results in a smooth telling of the story with a running soundtrack.
Adapted from http://www.childdrama.com/lessons.html
Coming Together Narrative Pantomime
Adaptable for Kindergarten and older
Narrative Pantomime is a Creative Drama technique in which the teacher narrates a story and the students
improvisationally “act out” the story, each in their own space, the actions of the main character. Like the
characters in The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi in this exercise, the students start out alone, but eventually
come to work together. What follows is the narration you can read during the lesson. Naturally the exact
words are not important—it is the developing story that makes the lesson.
Story
Everyone find your own personal space in the room. Be sure you have enough room around you to turn all
the way around with your arms outstretched and not touch your neighbor.
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We’ll begin our story now. Everyone crouch down and make your self as small as you can in your space.
Imagine you are inside a hard, transparent, spherical shell. The shell is only just big enough for you to fit, so
you can barely move.
The shell is hard, but you discover that by pushing against the wall of the shell you can make a “dent.” You
can push one small part of the wall out away from you, and when you let it go, it doesn’t spring back. Keep
making more “dents” until you have actually made the whole shell bigger.
Keep pushing the walls out around you, smoothing out the dents as you go so you keep your shell smooth
and round. It is hard work pushing the walls out.
Keep enlarging your shell until it is just big enough to stand up in. Remember that your shell is a sphere--it is
as wide as it is tall.
Have you ever seen a hamster in one of those clear plastic balls? It can roll the ball all around the room by
“walking” inside it. You discover that you can do this in your own clear sphere. But remember how big your
sphere is! You can’t walk right up to a wall or other obstacle, because of the roundness of you sphere. Even
more important--you can’t possibly get near another person, because long before you can touch them, your
invisible sphere will bump into his sphere. If you stretch out your arm, you should just be able to touch the
place where your sphere touches another person’s--that is all.
Explore the room inside your sphere, taking care to remember where and how big it is, and to visualize your sphere.
Now you see someone--one of your classmates--and roll your sphere towards theirs. (Each person must
pick a partner and do this. If there is an odd number you the instructor can either make your own bubble to
partner with one student or make one threesome.)
When your spheres touch, you notice that they join, leaving a tiny opening between them that you can just
get your hands through. Reach through and shake the hand of your partner.
Now, working together, start making the hole between your spheres bigger by pushing its walls out. Keep
going until you have make a single, smooth sphere big enough for two.
Explore the room a little in your new, larger sphere. You’ll have to work together to control the way it rolls.
Now you see another pair of your classmates and roll towards them. When you spheres touch, once again
there is a tiny hole. Reach through and shake hands. Then once again gradually enlarge the hole until you
have made one four-person sphere.
(Repeat this as many times as necessary until the whole class has made one huge sphere.)
Now, working together, shove the walls of your sphere out until it fills every inch of the room.
Congratulations! We did it!
Discussion
Was it easy to imagine your shell/sphere as a real, three-dimensional thing?
Think about the border between your sphere and your neighbor’s. At first it is easy to see where one sphere
ends and the other begins. But you kept pushing out and smoothing until you had one big sphere. What
happened to the border? Could you even remember where it was? At first you were totally separate, but you
came together so completely that you couldn’t even remember what kept you apart.
Adapted from http://www.childdrama.com/lessons.html
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Fun Facts to Learn about the Animals in the Play
Besides the boy Teddy, the characters in the play are all based on animals that might live in a home garden in India.
Rikki Tikki Tavi is a baby mongoose.
A Mongoose is a small furry mammal that eats other animals like rodents, birds, reptiles,
worms and eggs. Some mongooses balance their diet with plant foods like seeds, fruits
and nuts. They have sleek bodies, pointy snouts and sharp claws on little feet which they
use to scratch the earth and burrow into the ground to build homes and catch prey. Depending on its species, a mongoose can range in size from 8 to 25 inches long with a tail that is almost as long as its body.
A mongoose is fast and agile, and can win a fight with a cobra because its thick fur helps protect it from a
cobra’s sharp fangs. Mongooses are clever and have been known to throw eggs against hard surfaces to
open them. Mongooses live in southern Asia, most of Africa and parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
• In the play, how does Rikki Tikki Tavi seem most like a mongoose?
• How does he seem most like a person?
• What does Rikki Tikki Tavi eat in the play?
• Why do you think Darzee is suspicious of Rikki when they first meet?
• Who else is afraid of Rikki, and why is that?
Darzee is a tailorbird
A tailorbird is a small warbler with modest plumage that lives in gardens from India to
Southern China and Java. About 5“ long, tailorbirds sport a reddish brown cap on top of
their small heads. They have a yellow-green body with a white belly and breast and they
carry their long narrow tails high in the air.
The tailorbird’s name comes from the crafty way it builds a nest. It uses its long beak to sew the edges of
leaves together with insect silk, plant fibers or stolen household thread. The resulting leaf pouch is lined
with lint or other soft materials. The growing leaves help to screen the nest from predators.
The tailorbird has a loud call that is repeated so quickly and often it can seem monotonous. It sounds like
chuee-o; chi-up; chee-rua interspersed with a rapidly descending 5 note trill.
• Darzee sings a songs in the play. What does she sing about?
• How does Darzee the tailorbird use her crafty skills to help scare Nag?
Chuchu is a muskrat
Muskrats are medium sized, semi-aquatic furry rodents that live near water. They are native
to North America but have been introduced to other continents. Muskrats weigh 2-4 lbs and
range in length from 18-25”. Their hairless, scaly tales are about half as long as their bodies.
They have broad heads with short ears and a blunt snout. They use their sharp front claws to
burrow homes into riverbanks and build dens or lodges similar to beavers. They mostly eat aquatic plants like
cattails and duckweed, but will dine on crayfish, snails, mussels, frogs, insects and slow-moving fish if available.
Muskrats are territorial and sometimes aggressive with each other even though it is common for several to share
a den through the winter. Muskrats are primarily nocturnal creatures; they can sometimes be seen during the
day.
• What do Chuchu and Rikki Tikki have in common?
• Why did Chuchu have Nag’s old snake skin?
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• What did he do with it?
Nag is a cobra
Cobras are carnivorous snakes that will eat other snakes as well as birds, eggs and small
animals. They live in tropical Africa, Australia and Southern Asia. Although not the most
poisonous snake in the world, the venom in a single bite is strong enough to kill an elephant. Like most snakes, the cobra is shy and will go out of its way to avoid humans. The
Cobra is a good hunter and is able to lift its head high up off the ground, which not only intimidates other
species, it also helps the cobra see better to search for prey. Cobras become fierce and aggressive when
angry; they display a distinctive hood and hiss loudly. King Cobras are the only snakes in the world that lay
their eggs in a nest and ferociously protect them until they hatch.
• How does Nag feel about his eggs?
• Why does he finally agree to leave the garden?
Rewrite a Scene and Act It Out!
Rewrite!
The animal characters in The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi are based on animals familiar to a young child living in India in the 19th century. In this exercise, your class will “rewrite” a scene in the play, using animals
they know well as characters.
Choose a scene to rewrite. Brainstorm a list on the board about the traits of each character in the scene.
Brainstorm a second list about the characteristics of animals your students know well. Have the students
match (or mismatch!) the familiar animals to the characters in the scene.
Act it out
As you read the scene each child on his own “acts it out” in pantomime concentrating on the five senses—
on really experiencing the new character’s adventures.
For example, in the scene below Nag the Cobra is about to attack Darzee. Chuchu stands by, frightened.
Rikki enters and when he sees Nag makes his natural battle cry, which scares Nag away. Chuchu sees this
and immediately admires Rikki and wants to be Rikki’s friend.
Students can change Nag into a bear, Darzee into a fish, Rikki into a lion, and Chuchu into a mouse. Or
Nag into a mouse and Darzee into a bear! The point is to make it fun and to see what can be created out of
the combinations!
Afterward, ask students to describe their experience.
DARZEE (frozen with fear) Oh dear, oh no, oh no no no.
NAG You have breathed your last, bird. Say goodbye to this life.
Nag’s hooded head looms over Darzee. Rikki entering, talks over shoulder to Teddy.
RIKKI Thanks, Pet, thanks a lot. Hey, Darzee...
Rikki and Nag see each other. Both are terrified.
NAG (gasp) Hisss.
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RIKKI (battle cry) Rikki tikki rikki tikki rikki tikki rikki tikki.
NAG (backing out, a cry of alarm) A mongoose! A mongoose is loose!
Nag exits. Rikki collapses in exhaustion.
CHUCHU (to Rikki) You-- you-- you were so great, so great. Let me just say, that you were so great.
DARZEE Oh dear, oh no. That Cobra almost... oh no.
CHUCHU Nag ran away when you said that Tikki Tikki Tikki.
RIKKI Who are you?
CHUCHU Chuchundra the muskrat. Chuchu for short, Chu for shorter. Howdydo, gladtameecha, you are so
great, whoever you are.
RIKKI I’m Rikki Tikki Tavi. Rikki Tikki for short. Rikki for shorter.
DARZEE Nag was afraid of you. Why was Nag afraid of you?
RIKKI I’m a mongoose.
CHUCHU You’re the mongoose?
DARZEE Quiet, Chuchu.
RIKKI That’s why a garden isn’t a garden until a garden’s got its mongoose.
DARZEE Because a mongoose can scare a cobra?
RIKKI Because a mongoose can kill a cobra.
CHUCHU Don’t wait, don’t pause, go kill that cobra, go get it Rikki Tikki Tavi.
RIKKI I’m not Rikki Tikki Tavi yet, I’m just Rikki. Little Rikki. I’m just a baby. I don’t know how to kill a cobra. I
never had my lesson yet.
DARZEE Nag doesn’t know that. Get on with it!
RIKKI I’m too little for this garden.
DARZEE Where are you going?
RIKKI To someplace else. A somewhere else.
• How were the new characters the same or different from the ones they saw in the play?
• Was it easy or hard to replace the characters with different animals?
• What was the funniest moment? What was the scariest moment?
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Make it Visual!
Stick Puppets
Have your students make drawings or paintings of the animal characters they created in rewrite! Next, have
them cut out the drawings and paste them on to heavier paper cutting around the outlines, or for younger
children create a simple shape just outside the details of the drawing. They can add collage elements like
furry fabric, yarn or googely eyes as details. Create stick puppets by gluing the characters onto popsicle
sticks or tongue depressors.
Create a Setting for the Characters
Brainstorm with students about how to make a setting for the stick puppets. Coach them to define what scene
they want to illustrate and where the character should be in the scene. Provide boxes that can become platforms or proscenium stages and other materials for students to create their settings. When the work is finished,
have the students explain what they have done. With younger students, write down their ideas and display
their words along with their artwork. Older students can write a short descriptive paragraph about their work.
Rikki Tikki Word Search
Word List
agree
alone
bird
crumbs
eat
eggs
fight
forgive
friendship
fright
garden
mongoose
muskrat
safe
snake
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A
T
C
K
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B
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W
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U
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N
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W
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F
M
C
G
A
A
F
E
D
E
N
B
B
I
K
L
R
G
H
B
O
S
T
V
E
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I
G
J
G
A
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D
E
N
N
G
S
M
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O
J
M
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K
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A
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