TEACHER RESOURCE PACKSEESAWFOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH PUPILS IN NURSERY - YEAR 1

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SEESAWBy Stewart MeltonDirected by Sarah Argent

FROM 26 JAN TO 9 MARCHFOR PUPILS IN NURSERY TO YEAR 1

A SEESAW ONLY WORKS WITH TWO.

Being little can be hard work. There are holes to dig, sand castles to make, treasures to find, adventures to be had. It’s much easier when you have a friend to help. But what if making friends is hard work too?

Seesaw, back following a successful run in 2014, is a beautiful, funny and sensitive exploration of the push and pull of friendship, and the ups and downs of being very young.

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CONTENTSINTRODUCTION p.4

ABOUT THE PLAY p.5

MAKING THE PLAY: INTERVIEW WITH THE WRITER p.7

DRAMA ACTIVITIES - OVERVIEW p.10

We are currently developing the full sequence of drama activities with our partner school. They will be added to this pack by mid-November 2017.

TEACHER RESOURCES

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INTRODUCTIONThis pack is for teachers bringing pupils to see Seesaw in spring 2018. Drama activities to accompany your visit will be added to the pack by mid-November

The Unicorn production of Seesaw is a play about friendship and about taking first steps towards independence. The boy and girl meet in a sandpit. As they get to know each other and negotiate the first steps of a new relationship, they move through ups and downs, they make mistakes and find solutions to their mistakes. Seesaw is a play about children who discover their own inner resources and who grow in confidence.

The classroom activities are designed to support and extend pupils’ visit to the theatre and offer teachers ways to pick up on and explore the themes in the play, before and after a visit. They will use drama and storytelling as ways of exploring ideas that are relevant to the play and to support National Curriculum requirements.

‘All pupils should be enabled to participate in and gain knowledge, skills and understanding associated with the artistic practice of drama. Pupils should be able to adopt, createand sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They shouldhave opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences, as well as to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama and theatre performances.’ National Curriculum

The resources will also provide links to the EYFS curriculum, though the development of spoken word and to SMCS aspects of learning.

There will be a free teacher CPD day for Seesaw on Friday 12 January from 10am – 4pm where teachers can find out more about the show and gain practical experience of the classroom activities, before leading them with a class.

To find out more about the CPD or book your place, email schools@unicorntheatre.com.

TEACHER RESOURCES

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ABOUT THE PLAYPeach sky. Amber sycamore leaves. Sandpit. Litter bin. Seesaw.

Seesaw follows the developing relationship between a girl and a boy as they meet and play in a sandpit over five seasons. When the audience enter the theatre, they will encounter a huge sandpit, lit with a gentle light reminiscent of autumn.

There is a girl playing in the sandpit with her toy rabbit, Hairy. When the girl runs off a boy enters. The boy turns and waves to someone, we assume an adult watching over from a distance, he waves again. He is drinking a carton of juice,.He drops the empty carton on the floor, says ‘oh dear’ picks it up and puts it in the bin.

The boy goes over to the seesaw. He wants to make it a rocket, but when he sits on the seesaw he can’t make it fly, even by jumping.

Noticing leaves falling from the trees, the boy starts gathering a pile of leaves together.

When the girl returns she is in a panic; she has lost Hairy. Looking everywhere, she thinks the boy may have hidden Hairy, or buried him under his pile of leaves. She pushes him out of the way, but Hairy is not there.

So begins the relationship between the girl and the boy. The girl’s distress over the loss of her beloved toy colours their first encounter, but as the play progresses, and the children meet again and again, they find the means to communicate. They find out who each other are; what they have in common and how they are different. They play alongside each other and together, they have fun, they encounter and fix problems, they collaborate and they fall out. Ultimately they learn that a seesaw really works best when there are two of them.

Seesaw is a play about the everyday experiences of children who are stepping out into the world on their own. It is about the way in which children explore the world, and about play as a serious, purposeful activity. It is about discovery and creativity in response to the world around them and complexity and challenge as they make their way in the world and navigate new relationships.

It is also a play about the importance of toys and objects which help children to transition new experiences. When Hairy is finally found buried deep in the sand the children celebrate, but we also know that his absence has given the girl and boy the opportunity to form a firm friendship.

TEACHER RESOURCES

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MAKING THE PLAY INTERVIEW WITH WRITER STEWART MELTONWHERE DID THE IDEA FOR THE SHOW COME FROM?

I had a meeting with Purni (the Artistic Director of the Unicorn) and she asked me whether I had written for under fives, I’ve not and I immediately became curious about writing for that age group having never considered it before.

Purni had an anecdote about when she had a violin lesson and there was another girl who had the violin lesson immediately after her. Purni had a penny in her violin case, spontaneously she gave the penny to the other girl and the following week when she met the girl again this other girl gave her the penny back. This exchange continued between each of the lessons, which spoke to me about a relationship being formed through a proxy; a shared object. My initial thoughts were an idea of parenting the penny, where each child takes it in turns to become custodian, guardian of the penny. But the penny is very small, not very visible, and not very active on stage, so the next part of the process was to think of what object could be more active and be another character on stage. So the penny has become Hairy the rabbit. Initially the strongest relationship in the play is between the girl and her toy rabbit. But Hairy disappears and the loss of him, the longing for him helps open up the girls view to and attempt to initiate a relationship with this little boy.

AND IT DOESN’T GO WELL AT FIRST?

Well that’s one reading. The girl and boy are forming this relationship and it is their first relationship that has no mediation by adults, so the bumps that they both knock over come simply from inexperience. But I think that adults are just as prone to the same relationship mishaps, the same kind of challenges, obstacles, and mis-apprehensions.

It was very much in my head while writing it to try to think from the point of view of a three and a half year old, and inhabit their frame of reference, but at the same time thinking about all of the relationships I have had since that age.

I have noticed a tendency within our culture to see children as incomplete adults; it’s always really bothered me. This play comes from the starting point that our protagonists, though they’re three or four, are experiencing the same emotions, and are as intellectually questioning, and penetrating, as any adult character. It was very important to me that it honoured the emotional and intellectual life of an under five person, not a child, a person first and foremost. So that means not cutting the crusts off and including the troughs as well as the peaks.

A lot of work for under fives that I’ve seen is very upbeat, very positive. Lovely, but doesn’t seem to acknowledge that life isn’t always fun and I really wanted to make something that recognised that it is not always easy being three and a half and that the world can be a difficult and complicated place.

TEACHER RESOURCES

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THE PLAY IS VERY CLOSELY OBSERVED, IS IT ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THOSE SMALL EVERYDAY MOMENTS?

I think the idea that play is children’s work is very important. When you’re three years old you don’t think of yourself as three years old, you don’t think of yourself as someone who is at play, you have an occupation or a series of occupations. At the beginning of the script is a character list where I’ve added their occupations. I really wanted to offer the director and the actors some pointers as to the interests of their characters.

I really kept in mind when I was writing the character of the girl that she was like a scientist; she would put things to the test, explore the natural environment around them and try to discover things about it.

The boy is a musician; he’s not pretending to be a musician. I think this is something that frustrates me about some other depictions of the very young that I’ve seen; a child pretending to do something, when a child does something. A child just sings a song, or will conduct an experiment.

IN THE PLAY THE TWO CHILDREN FIND THEIR WAY WITHOUT ADULT INTERVENTION; WHY ISN’T THEIR INTERACTION MEDIATED BY GROWNUPS? For this play I didn’t want any adult characters, to see the children through an adult filter, I did this by banishing the adults to off stage. I thought it was cleaner; part of the challenge of presenting children on stage is the performers are several decades older than the people in question. It seemed to me confusing to have an adult play an adult character and then two adults playing children; this peculiar convention we have; that if it’s an early twenties actor they can play a child, but if you’re in your thirties or forties, or older, you play a grown up. It seems somewhat arbitrary to me.

THE DIALOGUE THAT YOU’VE WRITTEN IS VERY TRUTHFUL TO THE STRUCTURE AND VOCABULARY CHILDREN OF THAT AGE MIGHT USE. DID YOU OBSERVE A LOT OF CHILDREN IN THE PROCESS OF WRITING?

As a theatre maker you’re always observing. I suppose I thought about friends who have children that age about how their daughters and sons speak.

As much as anything for me it is trying to preserve certain rhythms and cadences, patterns of speech, it was very important to capture that. I think a lot of the language of the play comes out of that age group being very purposeful, obviously there are moments of song and play, but a lot of the time they’re very direct about what they want, what they need and what they’re curious about. A lot of the language of the play came out of trying to capture that.

WHAT HAVE YOU OBSERVED ABOUT HOW CHILDREN IN THE AUDIENCE RESPOND TO THE PLAY?

My experience of writing for young audiences is that they are the best audiences and the younger the better. I loved watching the play with children, they are the most generous audience members, and they are the most serious audience members. I know when I am at the theatre there’re bits of my brain thinking about how I’m going to get home or shopping I need to do, I’m not fully present

TEACHER RESOURCES

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and I suspect that is true of other adults as well. Whereas the audiences at Seesaw I see completely give themselves over to it, which was really heartening. I hope that it is a play that draws the children forward to look and listen.

Sarah (the director) and I discussed in our initial meetings; how focused can we go in, how tightly can we zoom in on the experience of people this age and in a sense how small, how quiet can we be? I think we have both had experienced frustration in other work we’d seen; that it was loud and full of brash colours, and a certain distrust of the audience, that they’d have to be distracted with noise and light rather than invited into a world.

While the audience is not addressed directly and there is no direct interaction, I hope the children feel free to comment, or ask questions of their neighbours. I often noticed the audience members wanting to share the experience and turning to a parent or a teacher or another child, to share something of their experience like ‘the leaves are falling’ a simple kind of reiteration of what they’re observing, what they are witnessing.

IS THIS A NEW CREATIVE COLLABORATION; BETWEEN YOU AS WRITER AND SARAH ARGENT AS DIRECTOR?

Sarah had many years experience of creating devised plays for this age group, I had none and she was used to being responsible for many aspects of the production from design and music and text as well as directorial.

We were both doing something we haven’t done before or in Sarah’s case haven’t done for a while. I often start by hearing characters; a rhythm or a distinctive turn of phrase, that’s how I meet them. I suspect that seesaw is a lot wordier than many plays for this age group, but most of the script is still stage directions. In workshops where we first developed the piece we started with action, with what happened.

IS A LOT OF THE NARRATIVE IS TOLD THROUGH WHAT HAPPENS?

I was mindful that I didn’t want to overburden the audience with masses of speech; I was interested in seeing them do things. I knew that in terms of revealing the different characters thoughts and emotional experience, it had to come as much out of action as through speech. I think a large part of the experience of being that age is experiencing emotions that are larger than you have ability to describe; larger than you’re able to articulate.

TEACHER RESOURCES

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DRAMA ACTIVITIESTEACHER RESOURCES

The activities – which will be added to this pack by mid November 2017 – are designed to capture children’s imaginations and increase motivation to learn. They will offer a range of possible ways to link with your classroom priorities.

Our teacher resources and CPD support teachers in embedding drama in their curriculum planning. Working through drama allows children to explore things that matter to them within a fictional context, draw on their prior knowledge and apply it to new situations, develop language as they give expression to new understandings and develop emotional intelligence and critical thinking as they see things from different perspectives. It also allows the children to take responsibility, make decisions, solve problems and explore possibilities from within the drama.

ACTIVITIES MAY INCLUDE:

• Drama work which explores the importance of favourite toys and transitional objects for children.

• In-role drama focussing on developing independence, where the children support a child who needs their advice about leaving their parent in order to try a new experience.

• Drama work drawing on the children’s own experiences of forming new relationships, highlighting the challenges and rewards of developing friendships.

These activities are currently in development with our partner school and will be available in the autumn term 2017. Please email schools@unicorntheatre.com if you would like notification as soon as they are online.

SEESAWA Unicorn production

By Stewart MeltonDirected by Sarah Argent Resource pack written by Catherine Greenwood