PROJECT
E
R
T
A
E
H
T PAGE
PLAY
2014-2015
Teacher
Guidelines &
Resource Packet
Western Illinois University [Insert Date]
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Who is Project Theatre?
Project Theatre is a regional and touring theatre group located in Galesburg, IL
dedicated to enhancing the collective and educational experience of community
members in Knox County and surrounding communities. Our mission is
provide accessible and collaborative theatre experiences to community
members through participation in practical performances, educational
workshops and initiatives, and patronage, thereby enhancing and supporting the
artistic and civic community of Galesburg and the surrounding West Central
What is PAG E PLAY?
Page Play is an educational initiative designed to encourage and develop young
people’s writing skills, creativity, and confidence through participation in a crosscurricular activity combining creative writing and live theatre!
Using stories and poems crafted by young authors in your classroom, Project Theatre
will create and perform a 44-55 minute production that showcases some of the
narratives, characters, and dialogue presented by your students, while also addressing
various issues young writers deal with today, such as self-confidence and bullying.
Because the writing process is a creative effort shared by both Project Theatre AND
your students, the results are wildly unique, as well as entertaining, providing a
purpose for children to write and use their imaginations, as well as an opportunity for
them to engage with and experience live theatre.
Project Theatre believes participation in PAGE PLAY is a valuable opportunity to
enhance your classroom’s writing program by providing an additional outlet for
students to exercise their creative writing skills, as well a chance for students to see
their written works transformed into a full-length production. As children watch
actors performing literature by themselves and other children—often by children they
know—they become very excited about their own possibilities as writers, and begin
to say, “I can do that too!” At the same time, PAGE PLAY encourages its
participants to consider the different applications of written communication, such as
the transformation of a short story into a play, as well as differing forms of
communication, and, most importantly, to explore the endless possibilities of one’s
own imagination and potential.
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Western Illinois University [Insert Date]
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A local sponsor has invited Project Theatre to perform PAGE PLAY in your
community and has arranged for material written by your students to be included in
the performance!
Now What?
After you have read through all of the materials, introduce this writing project to your
students using the Writing Guidelines and Story Submission Forms included in this packet.
We encourage you and your students to select the best of their work to send to us for
consideration. The submission may be a new assignment, a selection from a child’s writing
portfolio, from a journal kept during the school year, or writings from your own writing
curriculum.
When discussing the Writing Guidelines with your class, please make note of the
following:
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· Please do not require students to write a play. Stories, poems and essays are better
suited for our performance needs. However, submission of a short play will not exclude
it from selection.
· We encourage students to work together and submit collaborative pieces for
consideration, or even a piece written by your entire class! And because we can only
choose 3-4 stories per performance, class collaboration may provide greater
opportunity for more of your students to see their work in action!
· Poems can be as short as a few lines to several pages long. Stories should be between
one and three pages. However, these are just suggestions, we do not want to stifle any
child’s creativity.
· While we believe creative ideas are just as important as grammar, spelling and
punctuation, a student’s mastery of these skills will not determine their eligibility;
although, the teacher may choose to require as little or as much attention to these
details as he or she sees fit.
· Please make sure each story has a Story Submission Form attached to it and is
completely filled out. For co-authored stories, each author should fill one out. Class
stories need only one form attached and signed by you.
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Western Illinois University [Insert Date]
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Our Sto ries Are Written. What’s Next?
· A total of at least twenty-five and no more than one hundred students’ manuscripts
may be submitted for each performance, so we encourage you to select the best of
your students’ work to be submitted for consideration. We cannot guarantee the
performance of a specific child’s piece.
· Project Theatre will return all manuscripts to your Story Coordinator on the day of
your performance. If you are concerned about illegibility, loss or damage to the
original manuscripts, you or your Story Coordinator may opt to make copies and send
those.
· At least one week prior to the performance, the Story Coordinator will be contacted
with the names of the students whose work will be performed and honored.
Your Story Coordinator is:
Your Story Submission Deadline is:
How Are Sto ries Cho sen?
We look for strong story lines: a well-defined beginning, middle and end, and we like
stories that contain moral or thematic statements as our goal is to educate as well as to
entertain. We are delighted to also find stories that include children’s thoughts on
current world and national problems or events. They often provide unique solutions
and perspectives on so-called adult matters. However, such themes and storylines are
in no way required. Technically, however, we do need to be able to stage the work, so
consideration of the number of characters in the story, how many settings there are,
what kinds of costumes, props, sets, etc. may be considered when choosing stories for
adaptation.
To encourage as many young writers as possible, additional students will be honored
with a Certificates of Creativity recognizing stories and poems that demonstrated
exceptional effort or creativity. We will give recognition and a round of applause to
all students who submitted a story to the PAGE PLAY project.
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On Adapting the Sto ries
Because stories must be staged, stories may be adapted, however, Project Theatre
promises to maintain the storyline and essence of a student’s work.
In adapting student writings for performance, it is entirely possible that changes will
be made to the children’s original text. Factors involved in making these decisions
include the size and gender of our acting company, the quality of the original text,
logical inconsistencies in the story line, and staging limitations of touring theatre.
We may change the gender of a character if it is not essential to the story, i.e. Timmy
changed to Tammy. Due to the small size of the acting company, non-essential
characters may be deleted: “my two best friends” becomes “my best friend”.
The most common change we make is the addition of dialogue. Young writers will
often create space within the narration where additional dialogue is implied, such as
“The king explained what happened.”
Other times we will shift narrative text into dialogue between actors. Because of the
nature of live theatre some pieces of narrative work are better as stage action as
opposed to verbal storytelling. In these cases, we might see the action instead of
telling about it. Additionally, young authors will often write the action of a story to
take place over an extended period of time or in a variety of locations. We may
simplify it to one time or one place.
On Plagiarism
Project Theatre does not condone plagiarism and any stories suspected of
plagiarism will be immediately withdrawn from consideration.
If you suspect a story is plagiarized, please make a note of it or do not send it.
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Writing Guidelines for
Young Authors
You can wr ite about anything. It ca n be
serious or funny or silly o r sad or… y ou get
the pictu re!
You can write a sto ry, a poem , an essay, a
pla y, or a song a nd y ou make it as long as
you want or as shor t as you want.
We love drawings and artwork. Please send
them with your story or poem .
Help us out, write as clear ly and neatly as
you ca n. Ha ve you r cla ssma tes read y our
writing and check for good ha ndwritin g and
spelling. Of course, that’s on y our final
draft. At first, just w rite—let y our ideas out
onto the paper.
Remem ber, y ou are the writer. That means
no
copying
from
a
book,
story
y ou’re
stu dying
in
class,
yo ur
neighbor,
a
television show , o r a m ovie you’ ve just seen.
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Project Theatre
Story Submission Form
T i t l e :___________________________________________________
A ut h o r:_________________________________________________
G r a d e :________________
T e a c h e r :_______________________________________________
S c h o o l :_________________________________________________
C i t y :______________________
S t a t e :__________________
A g e :__________________
I promise that this story, poem or drawing is my own work
and that I did not copy it from a book, television show,
movie or anything else.
_________________________________________________________
Signature
Date
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