Theater Workshop: Short Play Production

Organized by Emma Zhang ’24

Brief Description

This project will be a workshop for a short play adapted from a French children’s book. It is a beautiful story about a little chicken with big dreams. Although the book is written for kids, the story is meant to be heartfelt for everyone. In this workshop, we will read the story together, develop a script based on the original book and an existing play adapted from the story, and finally put on our show! Participants will have the chance to explore adaptation, play development, acting, and prop making (hopefully using the Makerspace). All of the activities involved will be done with collaboration and teamwork.

Any Prerequisite Skills or Knowledge Needed?

No skills or knowledge is required. And not everyone has to do acting if they don’t feel comfortable doing so! We need people for writing/directing/crewing/... It will be very helpful if any of the participants can play instruments like guitar or ukulele. We would also appreciate having someone familiar with the Makerspace. Also, if you are interested in co-organizing this activity with me, please let me know.

Time Footprint

This activity will require consistent participation. Since making a short play in five days is a heavy task, we will meet about 3-4 hours a day (actual time will vary depending on our progress). The time of the meeting will be determined at the beginning of the Joy-Term, based on participants’ availability. This is an activity that requires consistent participation, although anyone is welcome to watch the final production of the play.

Here is a preliminary schedule. There will be a final schedule prior to the starting date. The actual schedule is subject to change.

Jan 10: Introductions: Read the original story and watch a previous adaptation. Discuss general ideas for the play. Divide into small groups.

Jan 11: Script development & Prop design: Start to put together a script for our play. This won’t be a huge amount of work since it’s an adaptation of the book, and we will most likely stick with the original plot. Design and gather materials for the props.

Jan 12: Script development & Prop design: Continue to work on the script and props. Should finish by the end of day. Actors and directors have a pre-rehearsal of the play.

Jan 13: Rehearsals. Make changes as needed.

Jan 14: Rehearsal and final performance!

Number of Participants

We need a minimum of 5 participants. The ideal number is 8-10 and the maximum number is 12-15 if some participants are interested in writing/directing/crewing and do not wish to be actors. If fewer than 5 people sign up, we will consider producing a play with fewer characters instead.