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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? 2 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? 3 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York • 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 4 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York 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? 5 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York • 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. 6 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York 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 7 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York 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? 8 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York • 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. 9 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York 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? 10 Educational Guide The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi by Y York 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 E A T C K F I G H T B G T R W O S A F E I R Y U L R N O I W R E 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 O I G J G A R D E N N G S M O N G O O S E H R O J M U S K R A T A F R I E N D S H I P 11