Your story, our story (scripted version)

This activity probably works best as a follow up to the non-scripted version mentioned earlier, and may take place over several classes.

1) Before the session, ask the group to write short summaries of a personal story of their own and to send them to the course leader by email.

Here are some examples of the kind of stories you're looking for. These stories were written by participants from Mexico, Serbia and Gaza on a remote theatre course for adults.

 1) My father comes from a very poor family. He had to start working when he was 6 years old in a grocery store to help my grandmother with the maintenance of the family: 5 brothers and 4 sisters. But not only that, he also had 11 half-brothers to play with.  Sometimes my father would invite their half-brothers to play soccer together. At the end of the day, they became just one big family. One day, my father went to play soccer with some of his brothers and half-brothers. The soccer game finished and everybody went back home happily. Suddenly, he started to count his brothers and he realised one of them was missing. He hurried back to the soccer yard and to his surprise he found his little brother waiting for him.  On that day, he could have lost his brother but luckily this didn't happen. The child waited for my father patiently for around 2 hours. Now, my father is a retired teacher and the brother who got lost is a vet. They managed to survive difficult times despite the hard conditions of their childhood. Whenever they meet, they always tell this story to the family. 

 2) I was living in a foreign country at the time and had just moved into a little courtyard house in a narrow alley. I was about to get on with a thorough cleaning of the place but first wanted to go outside for a smoke. After I finished, I tried turning the door knob but I couldn’t open it. I tried again and again with no luck. Only then I realized that the door could automatically lock itself. I started panicking because I had nothing on me - no phone, no money, no key. Through the barred window I could see the key shimmering on the coffee table. It looked so close, yet so far away. I started knocking on the neighbours’ doors and because I didn't speak much of the language and I was using a lot of body language, a small crowd gathered around my window. They were talking among themselves, barely noticing me and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They all disappeared after a few minutes leaving me utterly hopeless. Soon after, two older man showed up with a long pole and a magnet. They tied the magnet to the pole, slid the pole through the bars and …voila…the key was in my hands. The relief I felt was nothing compared to the gratitude I had for my neighbours and the realization that despite the size of the city, cultural and language barriers, there were people around me that I could rely on. 

 3) When I was 10 years old I used to walk across a farm on my way to school and I came back home along the same way. One day I found a tree of figs, and I started eating figs from this tree every day and that continued for a long time when a strange man saw me ,I was afraid because he asked me angrily,"What are you doing ?" I said ,"I'm eating figs but I thought this tree doesn't belong to anyone. The man laughed loudly and said,"It's fine. This fig tree is even better than the one you're eating from. Let's try the figs from here" so I started to eat from that tree instead every day.Unfortunately , later my friend told me that the tree I was eating from belonged to some one  so I thought I had to go to meet him and confess that I'd been eating his figs. When I went to his house I got a huge shock ! He was the same strange man. Then I discovered that he had been so generous with me and I felt satisfied with myself that day. Honestly, that man taught me a valuable lesson about generosity and humility.

 2) In lockdown theatre mode these can then be distributed amongst different breakout rooms for performances to be prepared. Make sure you give each group stories which were written by members of other groups (so that no-one has their own story to work with). As with the stories above, you should ideally remove the name of the person whose story it is and any other defining features which would give this away. Ask each group to choose one story to work with and to start converting it into a script which they then rehearse and learn. This may take place over several sessions.

 3) When the performances are ready, everyone comes back to the main room. After they have performed their play to everyone, the original author of the story reveals herself and is invited to comment on what it was like to see her story performed by others.

 Notes

 Here are the final performances for story 2 and 3 above.

There are advantages in the actors knowing whose story it is (they can ask follow-up questions to the author to make sure they get all the details right) but also to the actors not knowing whose story it is as we've exemplified here (it may be motivating to try to guess after the performances)

 Two or more remote theatre clubs working together in different locations around the world could send stories to each other to be performed back to their authors in their joint meetings. This is a very powerful way to build a connection and to understand each other.

Once the script is written down, it doesn't mean that it can't be changed of course. In fact, once the students start rehearsing (and consequently noticing how their written words translate into live theatre) it's almost inevitable that they will want to make changes. Notice how this has happened with the script below -written and performed by participants from Belgium, Gaza and Mexico, based on a personal story from a participant in Egypt.

Valeria (Brother): Hey Edana

Rebecca : Hi Brother.

Valeria: Edana, it’s almost time to enrol at the engineering college. Have you done your application yet?

Rebecca: No, not yet.

Thoughts: But I don’t want to do engineering! I want to do something more interesting, something different.

Valeria: Mum: Edana, your brother tells me you haven't enrolled yet. Why not?

Rebecca: Well, mum, to be honest, I’m not sure I want to do engineering.

Valeria: (Dad): What ? What do you mean? You are meant to be an engineer. You are good at maths, you have the best grades in your class.

Rebecca: But dad...

(Valeria shows virtual background)

Valeria. (Mum): Edana, Remember you have to think of your future. You will need stability, money, status…. (virtual background - stones, money, kamala harris. 2 screens at this point)

Back to one screen

VALERIA : MUSIC - violin, confusion...Turn it down a little

Rebecca: Silence – then thoughts: - confusion flashlight

I really want to try to do what I love. And what I love is ….Languages / (Say some words in different languages?)  But...maybe I should choose stability...what if I don’t get a job in the future … But I can’t do what I don’t enjoy...Should I follow my passion? Should I go for security?   You know what...I’m going to follow my passion, I’m going to enroll in the language department.

Valeria camera on with virtual background. Rebecca camera off.

Narrator and show books and different words in different languages while speaking (photos in drive).

Valeria: And so she did. Edana studied two days a week and the rest of the time, she volunteered with projects related to English.  And...she discovered that what she loved most of all, was teaching!  Photo of the hands up project (a class with kids with hands up).

 Rebecca camera back on hands up photo can stay up??

Valeria (Mum): Edana, do you know they are taking advantage of you, you should be paid for your work. This is not how life works. You shouldn’t work for free!

 Rebecca But I love it mum. And it’ll give me some experience!

Rebecca 5 years later – sign - keep it up while NArrator continues.

Valeria (Narrator). Edana  is now working in different schools, teaching and absolutely loving what she does. The schools are very good schools and Edana has a very good salary.

 VAleria: Mum dad brother:  You did really well. We are proud of you.

Rebecca: Thanks mum, thanks dad, thanks brother. ( looks into the camera with candle) You know, It’s not important what you study or what you do. What is important is to be passionate about what you do!