Line, Please!

An adaptation doesn’t always have to match its source material word-for-word. Challenge your students to adapt and act out a fairytale, minus the dialogue!

Start by picking a fairytale that your whole class knows, or read one together, like Cinderella or The Ugly Duckling. Then, put it on its feet!

First, name all of the characters in the story and have your students create physicalities for each one, letting them discover how each character moves and presents themselves.

Then, zoom in on certain moments from the story, going from scene to scene, to create frozen tableaux for each plot point, introducing the idea of a stage picture and physical relationships.

Finally, try to put the whole thing together using only miming and letting the movements drive the action of the story. Voilá, you’ve got a show!

Perform your fairytale adaptation for another class at school and see if they can guess which tale it is without knowing any of the dialogue!

For an extra challenge: choose a singular word as a class that you think embodies the essence of the fairytale and incorporate that word and only that word throughout your piece. Have fun saying this word in as many different ways as possible and letting it supplement your movements. Now, you’ve really let the story speak for itself!

To support this unit, use the Sound Asleep Activity.