In the Classroom

in the classroom An educator’s resource guide Units of Inquiry for integrating the arts into Historical background standards-based curriculum Suggested lessons, activities including: and teaching tips Links to media Resource directory Table of Contents J.M. Barrie—The Man Behind Peter Pan ....................... page 4 Charles Frohman ............................................................... page 6 The Story and Musical Numbers ...................................... page 7 Thoughts, Photos and Quotes ......................................... page 8 Education Connections .................................................. page 11 Units of Inquiry and Lessons Note: grade levels not listed in standards as all lessons are adaptable within the standard) How do we shape and form our identities? ............... page 14 What does it mean to grow up? .................................. page 19 Lesson: Through the Eyes of a Child ............................ page 25 Thoughts for Further Discussions ................................... page 27 Inquiry and Lesson Resources ....................................... page 28 Books, Videos, and Online Resources for reference ........................................................................................... page 57 For questions regarding curriculum and/or resources, please contact Holly Valentine, RBTL Associate Director of Education [email protected] 2 in the classroom We’ll be young, that’s how we’ll stay. Ev’ry wish is a command, We will find ourselves in Never, Neverland. -Finding Neverland Laura Michelle Kelly and Aidan Gemme Original Broadway Cast of Finding Neverland The world is so mysterious and wild when you start to see it through the eyes of a child. We were young and having fun playing all our cares away. Sawyer Nunes and Aidan Gemme -Finding Neverland Original Broadway Cast of Finding Neverland Laura Michelle Kelly and Aidan Gemme Original Broadway Cast of Finding Neverland Picture a land that you never have seen where life is eternal and evergreen; A future of happiness all in your hands, all in this place of your dreams, here inside Neverland. -Finding Neverland a pirate band, and their games of pretend led to the formation of a theatrical club. In a speech given in 1924, Though the first draft of J.M. Barrie’s play, Peter Pan took James traced this band of friends and their games to the him only a few months to write, it could be said that the beginnings of Peter Pan: “When the shades of night began beloved story known and treasured by so many actually to fall, certain took a lifetime to write. It is young “All children, except one, a tale woven from the facts, mathematicians grow up” experiences and fantasies of shed their triangles one man’s life, including and crept up walls -J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan childhood and adulthood. and down trees, and became pirates in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan. James Matthew Barrie was For our escapades in a certain Dumfries garden, which is born May 9, 1860, the ninth enchanted land to me, were certainly the genesis of that of ten children. His older nefarious work.” brother David was the jewel of his mother’s eye, showing As his years at Dumfries ended, James was now a man, but indications of rising to great in essence was still a boy, as he stood just five feet tall. heights in his lifetime. Throughout his life he had the slight stature and However, at the age of appearance of a boy himself. He was aware of this and James Matthew Barrie thirteen, David was killed in a often in his journals wrote such notes as ‘Grow up and have skating accident, and became a boy who would never grow to give up marbles - awful thought’ or ‘He is very young up. It would be more than three decades before Barrie looking - trial of his life that he is always thought a boy.’ would create the character of Peter Pan, but here at just six He began writing plays in earnest and years old, the seed was planted. As his mother went into to meet with some success. It was the inconsolable depression, young James tried desperately to staging of his play Walker, London in bring happiness back to his mother and family, to no avail. 1892 that would bring the next As Barrie describes in his novel Margaret Ogilvy, (a story important woman into his life. The based on his mother and his own boyhood) when entering lead role was to be played by actress his mother Margaret’s room, she would often ask if it was Mary Ansell. Mary and James began David, to which James would reply, ‘No, it’s not him, it’s a close friendship and then courtship, just me.’ As he goes on to write in the novel, we see the leading to marriage in 1894. As a beginnings of his world of fantasies, and the sense of wedding present, James purchased a childlike play he would keep throughout his life; St. Bernard puppy for Mary who was ‘...At first, they say I was often jealous, stopping her fond named Porthos. As they took walks, memories with the cry, “Do you mind nothing Porthos attracted the notice of many about me?” but that did not last; its place was children. Three years into their taken by an intense desire...to become so like Mary Ansell, 1896 marriage, Mary and James still had no him that even my mother should not see the children, and Porthos became even more their child. difference….Then I practiced in secret, but Barrie’s numerous plays had given him fame and fortune by after a whole week had passed I was still this time, and ultimately, more time to do some of his rather like myself. He had such a cheery way other favorite things besides work. of whistling, she had told me….and when he whistled he stood with his legs apart, and his Barrie began walking more and more through Kensington hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers.’ Gardens with Porthos, which is where he first encountered the boys of the Davies family, five year old George, three His knack for storytelling and whimsy continued to grow year old Jack, and baby Peter, who would also go the during his preteen and teenage years when he attended Gardens for walk with their nurse, Mary. As Andrew Dumfries Academy, and often recalled his years here Birkin writes in his novel J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, it among his happiest. He hated the idea that like all children, was George who first began to cultivate the friendship with he would have to eventually grow up one day. In Margaret Barrie; ‘To him, he was not J.M.Barrie, the celebrated Ogilvy he wrote, ‘The horror of my boyhood was that a time writer, but a small man with a cough who could wiggle his would come when I must also give up the games, and how it ears and perform magic feats with his eyebrows. Moreover, was to be done I saw not...I felt that I must continue playing he seemed to be singularly well-informed on the subject of in secret.’ During his time at Dumfries, James cricket, fairies, murders, pirates...desert islands…. George discovered a love of the game cricket, and more had never met anyone quite like him; he was old, but he importantly, his love for theatre. He and his friends created was not grown up. He was one of them.’ Birkin goes on to write ‘Barrie had Sylvia and Arthur now had two more known many children, but none of sons, Michael born in 1900 and them so captivated him as the boy in Nicolas (Nico) born in 1903. It was the red tam-o’-shanter. George through their ongoing friendship and seemed to combine all the finest adventures that Peter Pan was qualities of boyhood in rare ultimately created, with its first draft abundance. ‘There never was a being written for the stage in just four cockier boy’, he later wrote of him in months. Charles Frohman, a The Little White Bird, a fictional legendary Broadway producer at the account of his relationship with time, had been promised a new work George.’ by Barrie. Barrie referred to Peter Pan as a dream of his, yet was certain it George, Jack and Peter Davies in 1901. Note the red tams on their Still only knowing the boys from heads, made from their great grandfather’s judicial robes. would not be a commercial success, so their walks, it was likely around New sent Frohman another script as well, Year’s Eve 1897 that Barrie met the boys’ parents, Arthur which he gave to him for free. Peter Pan (originally and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, at a dinner party, where they referred to by Barrie as Peter discovered through conversation that Barrie was the man and Wendy) ‘read like a from the garden her boys talked of so frequently. Sylvia was Barnum & Bailey circus the daughter of the artist and writer George du Maurier, extravaganza. Not only did brother to actor Gerald du Maurier, and eventual aunt to the script require massive writer Daphne du Maurier. She would also be a third very sets and a cast of over fifty— important woman to JM Barrie. to include pirates, redskins, wolves, a lion, a jaquar, a In Peter Pan and Wendy, Barrie writes ‘There never was a crocodile, and eagle, an os- simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan’ in trich, a dog, and a ‘living’ reference to the Darling fairy– but at least four of the family. However, it cast were called upon to fly in could be that he was highly complex movements. hinting at the Davies Aside from the mammoth family, whom he based cost of staging such a produc- the Darling family on, tion, it was none too clear and his own entrance what sort of an audience Bar- into their lives.

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