Puppet Shows Delight in Drama

Drama students in the 1st and 4th grades recently completed their puppet study and shared performances with their peers.

First grade students worked with teacher Leslie Holland Pryor to adapt the traditional Ashanti tale “Anansi the Spider” for puppet theater. After many readings of this story following Anansi on a long, difficult journey leading to his rescue from terrible fates by his children, students identified the most important characters and developed scripts for them based on the story. They revisited their scripts several times to capture the volume, energy and enthusiasm of their narrative and added action elements to ensure their puppet show was as dynamic as possible.

Fourth grade students, who had more experience to tap into as part of their puppet study, adapted the story “Memoirs of a Goldfish” and created original stories, characters and scripts. They demonstrated their knowledge of the artform by employing more character development, vocal command and action in their performances. The 1st grade students used puppets that current 5th graders made when they were 3rd graders, and the 4th graders used puppets that Sea Beast Puppet Theatre created for the SK students.

Enjoy photos from the experiences here.