Goodnight Moon

Preview Guide for Parents and Teachers to Childsplay’s Production of

Goodnight Moon

We hope you find this guide helpful in preparing your children for an enjoyable and educational theatrical experience. Included you’ll find things to talk about before and after seeing the performance, classroom activities that deal with A play by Chad Henry curriculum connections and education standards,

Adapted from the book Goodnight Moon by and resource materials. Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd The Story: Produced by special arrangement with Since it was originally released in 1947, parents HarperCollins around the world have read Goodnight Moon, Directed by David Saar one of the most beloved and well-known stories Musical Direction by Alan Ruch in American history, as a bedtime story to their Choreography by JoAnn Yeoman little ones. Now this bedtime ritual is re- Scenic Design by Jeff Thomson imagined as a delightful piece of musical theatre. Costume and Puppet Design by Rebecca Akins It’s seven o’clock in the great green room. Lighting Design by Paul Black There’s a red balloon and a cow jumping over Sound Design by TBA the moon. There are kittens and mittens and a Stage Manager: Abigail Hartmann talkative mouse. There’s a quiet old lady who’s whispering “hush.” The dish and the spoon, the The Cast bears with chairs, and Mr. Nobody are all there Bunny...... Jon Gentry to entertain Bunny. He even loses a tooth! But Tooth Fairy, etc...... Dwayne Hartford it’s seven o’clock in the great green room and Mouse, etc...... Katie McFadzen it’s time to say goodnight. The Old Lady Old Lady...... Jodie L. Weiss struggles to help Bunny fall asleep, but fire truck sirens and mooing cows keep Bunny sitting This production is supported in part by: straight up in his bed. Bunny is wide awake and will not sleep until he says goodnight to every object within earshot. In this great green room, Bunny’s imagination runs wild. The Old Lady almost gets her wish after reading the tale of The Runaway Bunny, but how can Bunny fall asleep

in a room where pictures come to life in a Arizona Commission on the Arts flourish of song and dance and the Tooth Fairy Bashas’ Markets turns teeth into stars? In the end, he successfully City of Tempe/ says goodnight to everything and is finally ready Tempe Municipal Arts Commission for sleep. Wells Fargo

Things To Talk About and Do You can dramatize any book in ►An illustration is a frozen After Seeing Goodnight Moon: as simple or complex a way as picture that communicates a you want. Here’s a basic format moment in a story. Choose one Discussion Starters: to follow for Story or more characters and a Now that you’ve read and seen Dramatization: moment in a scene from the play Goodnight Moon, here are some ~Choose an introductory activity and create your own illustration things to talk about: How does or warm-up connected to the of it. You can also choose a the play differ from the book? story (to hook the students). sentence or paragraph from the Why do you think the ~Share story with the group. book Goodnight Moon (or playwright chose to make the ~Review story with students. another favorite book) to changes? ~Focus on characters, plot, illustrate. Hang your work in the setting and conflict(s). classroom. VA-S1C1 Story Structure: All plays have ~ Assign characters and play the Writing : three P’s: People in a Place with story (or just a section of it) out. ►Make a list of all of the things a Problem. Where does the ~Evaluate by talking about what in your bedroom that you could play take place (setting)? Who worked well and what could be say “goodnight” to. If you can’t are the people (or characters)? improved upon next time the spell the name of an item, draw a What are the problems story is played. picture of it and ask for help (conflicts)? What happens at ~Play the story again working on spelling it. Use all the items as the beginning of the play? The suggested improvements. spelling words. Practice writing middle? The end? What is the ~Evaluate again. the words until you have them climax plot? Resolution? ~Closing activity (this could be memorized. W01-S3C2-01 as simple as a round of applause Bedtime Rituals: ►Use the list you created from or a group high five). Bunny goes through the ritual of the above activity and come up T-S1C1-201,-202,-203,-204, saying goodnight to everything with two or more words that in his room before bed. What R01-S2C1-01,-02,-03,-04. rhyme with each word on your do you do before you go to ►Bunny asks the old lady about list. W01-S3C1-02 bed? Is it the same every a picture of his dad in a boat. Reading: night? Do you have a favorite Old lady tells him the story just ►Choose a selection of nursery bedtime story? Do you enjoy as she has done many times rhymes to read together as a bedtime or do you fight to stay before. Make up your own class. Copy them or use an over awake? stories based on pictures from head projector so everyone can books and magazines. You can Positive Attitude: The cow follow along. For pre-readers, also use personal photos. With a finally jumps over the moon on read a sentence and have partner, practice telling your her third try. She gets students echo it back until they stories to each other. Make sure encouragement from the others have the whole rhyme your story has a beginning, and believes that she can do it. memorized. R00-S1C2 middle and end. Take turns Have you ever tried very hard ►Together with your class or telling your story to the class. to do something that you family, come up with a list of at VA-S2C4-201,-202,-203, T- couldn’t and kept working at it least twenty books that you can until you could? Have you S2C2-101,-102 read together. Have a chunk of ever gotten or given Visual Art: time set aside everyday for encouragement that helped ►As a class, create a moon and group reading. Take turns you or another to achieve a stars ceiling project. Decide reading aloud or choose an adult goal? which planets and constellations who can read to you. R-S1C5 Activities Linked to Standards you would like to include. ►Different cultures have (samples noted in bold): Create the planets and different stories about the moon constellations by using paper, and the stars and how they came Creative Drama/Theater: cardboard, crayons, glitter or to be in the sky. Go to the ►The play Goodnight Moon is anything else you can think of. library and/or internet and see basically a dramatization of the Arrange the stars and planets on how many of these stories you picture book with added the ceiling in your classroom. can find. Share them with your dialogue, songs and situations. VA-S1C2-101,-102 class. 4FL-D2

Things to Talk About and Do Read the Book! It’s always create special effects. How do Before Seeing Goodnight Moon: great to have an idea of what the the lights change to suggest the story is about before seeing a time of day or night, to suggest Here are topics for discussion play. Since Goodnight Moon is a particular mood or to create a or activities to use before or also a very well-known book, special effect? after seeing the production: read it before you see the play. Bedtime ● Rituals ● Imagination What from the book do you Here are some words from the ● Nursery rhymes ● Story time ● think will be the most production that you might want Telling time ● Illustration ● challenging to put on the stage? to use for vocabulary or Pretend play spelling words: Here are some things to look clock, kitten, mitten, mush Hold That Thought: Ask for regarding the elements of brush, hush, pandemonium students the questions in bold design (set, costumes, music, virtuoso, conceive, achieve type on this page before seeing projections, puppets and succeed, measles, mumps, the play and talk about their lights): chicken pox, Jupiter, Mars, answers afterwards! constellations, comets, meteorites ►The scenic design (set) and Theater Etiquette: It’s helpful to properties (props) were directly Margaret Wise Brown (1910- review the rules of theater influenced by Clement Hurd’s 1952): The author of Goodnight etiquette before seeing a show, illustrations in the book. Look Moon and many other popular especially since this may be the closely at the illustrations before children’s books was born in first live theater experience for you see the play. What about May 1910 in Pomfret, CT. In some of your students. Please the set and props is the same as school, she excelled in athletics. take a moment to discuss the the pictures in the book? What After graduating, she worked in following pointers prior to seeing is different? teaching and studied art. Her the performance: ►The costumes were inspired by philosophy was that children ~Use the restroom before seeing artist Arthur Rackham (go to wanted to read about their own the show as we do not have www.bpib.com/illustrat/rackham.htm lives instead of reading intermission during our school for examples of his work) and the traditional fairy tales or fables. th performances. 19 century Mother Goose She loved animals (especially ~Stay seated during the illustrators. What does a dogs) and they appeared as performance. character’s costume central characters in many of her ~ Be respectful to the performers communicate about that books. Several of Brown’s and other people in the audience character? books have been re-released with by not talking during the ►Projections (much like a movie new illustrations decades after performance. Remember, the or slideshow) are used in this their original publication. Many actors can see and hear the production to create things like of her books are still in print with audience just like you can see and the night sky. The windows of the original illustrations and have hear them. the set are actually rear projection been translated into several ~ Appropriate responses such as screens. How do the projections languages. Margaret Wise applause or laughter are always help to tell the story? Brown was known to have lived welcome. ►A musical is a story that is told an extravagant life and had a ~Food, candy, gum and through speaking, singing and wide and prestigious social circle. beverages are not allowed in the dancing. In this production, the After meeting him at a party in theater. music is a recorded track that 1952, she became engaged to ~Use of cell phones (including actors sing along to. How does James Stillman Rockefeller, Jr. text messaging), cameras or any music affect the mood of While on a book tour in Nice, other recording device is not various scenes in the play? France, she contracted allowed in the theater at any ►Many of the objects and some appendicitis. She died from time! of the characters are puppets that complications from surgery on ~How is seeing a play different are brought to life by the actors. Nov 13, 1952 at the young age of than seeing a movie? How many different puppets 42. For a wonderfully detailed can you find in the play? biography of Ms. Brown go to “They have man tooth fairies, too. ►Lighting plays an important www.margaretwisebrown.com/lo Just depends on who gets the night part in setting the mood and time ng_bio.htm shift.” ~ Mouse to Bunny in a play. Lights are also used to Interesting Internet Connections: Goodnight Moon Booklist www.margaretwisebrown.com Prepared with the help of -website dedicated to Margaret Wise Brown Tim Wadham, Youth Services Coordinator for the Maricopa www.margaretwisebrown.com/allbooks.htm County Library District -a list of all of Margaret Wise Brown’s books Curriculum Connections: www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/moon/mphases.htm -a great phases of the moon activity Bedtime Time to Say Goodnight by Sally Lloyd Jones http://home.hiwaay.net/~krcool/Astro/moon/#mf Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems -a very informative site on all things related to the moon Counting Ovejas by Sara Weeks Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mythology/planets/Earth/moon.html When Sheep Sleep by Laura Numeroff -a source for cultural myths about the moon Goodnight, My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm Rituals -a rhyme a week resource Night Shift Daddy by Eileen Spinelli www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson216/picturecards.pdf Imagination -rhyming picture cards from Hey Diddle Diddle that you can reproduce Imagine by Ruth Brown Beverly Billingsly Takes the Cake by Alexander Stadler www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson216/picturecards.pdf -a wonderful interactive site for young children with stories, poems, games, Nursery Rhymes songs, etc Mother Goose's Little Treasures by Iona Opie and Rosemary Wells The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose by Arnold Lobel www.zelo.com/FAMILY/NURSERY ¡Pío Peep!: Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes -nursery rhymes and songs with sound My Very First Mother Goose illustrated by Rosemary Wells Little Boy Blue and Other Rhymes illustrated by Rosemary Wells www.time-for-time.com/default.htm Here Comes Mother Goose illustrated by Rosemary Wells -a source for teaching how to tell the time Storytime www.adha.org/kidstuff When the Library Lights Go Out by Megan McDonald -dental care for kids Telling Time www.toothfairy.org It’s About Time! by Stuart J. Murphy -the tooth fairy online Time To--by Bruce McMillan www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep Pretend Play -dedicated to the science of sleep, lots of fun information Orson Blasts Off by Raul Colon Not a Box by Antionette Portis Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran About Childsplay: All materials are available through your local library. Check it out! Childsplay is a non-profit professional theatre company of adult actors, performing for young audiences and families.

Our Mission is to create theatre so strikingly original in The Man in the moon, looked out form, content or both, that it instills in young people an of the moon, and this is what he enduring awe, love and respect for the medium, thus said, “It's time that now I'm getting preserving imagination and wonder, the hallmarks of up, all children went to bed.” childhood, which are the keys to the future.

We love to hear from our Want Some Drama in Your Classroom? audience members!

Childsplay If you would like help incorporating drama into your PO Box 517 curriculum by having Teaching Artist come into your Tempe, AZ 85280 classroom, Childsplay can help. We offer a variety of Phone 480-350-8101 or artist-in-residence and teacher training experiences. We can also help with pre- and post-show activities related to 1-800-583-7831 (in-state) the production. For more information, contact Patricia Email us at: [email protected] Black, Director of Education, at: [email protected] or 480-350-8129

Web Site: www.childsplayaz.orgTH

Ask your child/student about the play they

saw.

►Ask them about the story and the characters: What happens in the beginning, the middle and the end of the play? How many characters can they remember? Which character was their Script, Music and Lyrics by Chad Henry favorite and why? What were some of the things Based on the book by Margaret Wise Brown the characters did? What was their favorite part of the play? Directed by David Saar Musical Direction by Alan Ruch ►Ask them about the costumes, scenery, props, Choreography by JoAnn Yeoman puppets, lights, and music from the production. Scenic Design by Jeff Thomson Have them draw pictures to help describe the Costume and Puppet Design by Rebecca Akins things that they talk about. Lighting Design by Paul Black Sound Design by Christopher Neumeyer ►Ask them about something new that they Stage Manager: Abigail Hartmann learned from the play.

The Cast Bunny...... Jon Gentry Counting Game: In order to be able to tell time, Various Roles...... Dwayne Hartford you need to know your numbers and how to Mouse, etc...... Katie McFadzen count! How many of each item do you count? Old Lady...... Jodie L. Weiss Write the total number in the blank next to the row. This production is supported in part by: ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻ ____

♥♥♥♥♥ ____

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ____ Arizona Commission on the Arts Bashas’ Markets City of Tempe/ ♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪ ____ Tempe Municipal Arts Commission Wells Fargo

ddd ____ Can you fill in the blanks of this well-known nursery rhyme? ÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑÑ ____

Hey ______diddle, the cat and the ______, U U U U U U ____ The _ _ _ jumped over the moon,

The little _ _ _ laughed to see such sport, What is the total amount of all the items? ______And the _ _ _ _ ran away with the spoon. Can you match the pictures and the words? Draw a line connecting each word to its picture!

OLD LADY BUNNY DISH

TELEPHONE

BALLOON DOG COW

CLOCK

SPOON BEAR

MOUSE

Color the cat and the fiddle!

What Time Is It? What time is it on the clocks in the box below? Use the clock to the right if you need help with the location of the numbers on the clock.

§ ¡ ¥ ¤ 11:00 ¦ £ ¢