Week Four of Young Storytellers

On week two I was “won” in a notebook raffle, and this week I nearly went home with a booby prize.

Each week upon arrival, Mentors have to sign the visitor book. This week, I wasn’t paying attention, and signed my name in the “parent picking up child” section – I made a mental note to slip out of the back door when I left, in case they made me take one home.

Only one of the facilitators was in attendance today, and the mentee’s were a little rambunctious.  We faffed about for the first half hour covering the structure and layout of Slug-Lines and Dialogue, and then we moved our attention towards mentoring our student’s to create Slug Lines and Dialogue for the scenes they created last week.

Slugging out the Lines

Touche had a full grasp of the task at hand, and he spewed slug lines and dialogue into his notebook.  No creativity needed from me, just the occasional input and direction about laying the content out clearly on the page.  Needless to say, you can’t structure creativity, and my input fell on deaf ears.

My attention wandered to a nearby Mentor, Joolz, and her student – and I eavesdropped on their creative process.  From previous discussions, I knew this mentee had cast herself in a story about a ballerina reaching great heights of stardom and prima status in a ballet production.

This was going to be an interesting play to watch.  [During the Big Show at the end of the term, each of the student’s screenplays will be acted out by “real actors”]

My eavesdropping sparked minimal intrigue – I overheard a creative process squeezing out a laundry list of 18 names.  This play was going to require a large cast of nimble actors to portray the storyline – I hope at least a couple of them have some dance experience, and what they lack in skill they make up with enthusiasm.

The second half hour flew by, and before I realized – it was time to leave.  We did a group shake out – screaming and shaking on the spot, and then I slipped out the back door, where I bumped into Joolz.

She’d also signed the “parent picking up a child” page by mistake, and was also taking no chances.  I voiced my concerns regarding the size of the ballet cast required to act out her mentee’s script.

Turns out, the story line has changed – it’s now about a carton of 18 eggs, sitting on a fridge shelf.  No dance experience required.

Chicken Dance Score:  Students 0 – Mentors 0