2015-2016 Season Play Guide February 9-12, 2016 10:00am and 11:45am OUR MISSION TO SCHOOLS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS The mission of Lexington Children s Theatre s Education Department is to provide students of all ages with the means to actively explore the beauty, diversity, complexity and challenges of the world around them through the dramatic process. We strive for young people to develop their own creative voice, their imagination and their understanding of drama and its role in society. JUNIE B. IN JINGLE BELLS BATMAN SMELLS Program Review Information Not only does our programming align with KCC Standards, but this play guide as a whole is aligned with the KY Arts and Humanities Program Review under the following demonstrators: Demonstrator 2: a,c,d Demonstrator 3: a,b,d Demonstrator 4: d This play guide is sponsored by What will you discover? Dear Educator, 418 West Short Street Lexington, KY 40507 859.254.4546 FAX.254.9512 Lexington Children s Theatre is proud to be producing our 77th season of plays for young people and their families. As an organization that values the arts and education, we have created this Play Guide for teachers to utilize in conjunction with seeing a play at LCT. Our Play Guides are designed to be a valuable tool in two ways: helping you prepare your students for the enriching performance given by LCT s performers, as well as serving as an educational tool for extending the production experience back into your classroom. We designed each activity to assist in achieving the Kentucky Core Content (KCC) and to integrate the arts with your core curricular subjects. Teachers are important voices at LCT. We rely heavily on your input. If you have comments or suggestions about our Play Guides, show selections or any of our programming, your thoughts are greatly appreciated. Please respond to the Teacher Response form following a performance. We are thrilled that you rely on LCT to provide your students a quality theatrical experience, and we hope this resource aids you in extending our production into your classroom. LCT s Education Department
Play Synopsis Thunder rolls through the valley on the night John Henry, a steel driving man, is born with a hammer in his hand. Growing up, John feels the sweet ring of hammer against steel in his blood and knows he is destined to drive steel for the C&O Railroad Company. He heads down to the docks, hoping he can work his way up the Mississippi. He meets O Brien, challenges him to a cotton rousting race and wins passage up river on the Captain s boat. En route to Louisville, they navigate disastrous weather and John s steel driving skills save the boat from destruction. Once they arrive, John learns he has only one day to get to Cincinnati before the C&O crew heads out to West Virginia. His wish for speed is granted when he meets a man with a horse named Thunderbolt. John wins a bet by outracing Thunderbolt, and in return, gets to ride the horse all the way to Cincinnati. Arriving just in time, John makes the acquaintance of the C&O crew s Captain McDaniel, and is set to driving spikes with his new partner, the lovely Polly Ann. John and Polly make fast friends, and work for months building track through the Kanawah Valley. At the moment John Henry sees the sight of The Big Bend Tunnel, he knows he has reached his destiny. John and his crew set to slowly drilling through the mountain of solid rock. Reinforcement soon arrives in the form of a steam drilling machine, threatening to put the crew out of work. John challenges the machine to a race, in hopes of saving their jobs. His mighty hammer drills, long after the machine shuts down, until he breaks through the mountain. Then John Henry, utterly exhausted, lays down and dies as he was born: with his hammer in his hand. Your Role in the Play You may wish to have a discussion with your class about your upcoming LCT experience and their role as audience members. Remind your students that theatre can only exist with an audience. Your students energy and response directly affects the actors onstage. The quality of the performance depends as much on the audience as it does on each of the theatre professionals behind the scenes and onstage. Young audiences should know that watching live theatre is not like watching more familiar forms of entertainment; they cannot pause or rewind us like a DVD, there are no commercials for bathroom breaks, nor can they turn up the volume to hear us if someone else is talking. Your students are encouraged to listen and watch the play intently, so that they may laugh and cheer for their favorite characters when it is appropriate. At the end of the play, applause is an opportunity for your students to thank the actors, while the actors are thanking you for the role they played as an audience.
Before the Play Exploring the Origin of Folk Tales The Legend of John Henry is based on truth, but the story we know today has gone through many changes since its origin. Scholars have found that there really was a steel-driver named John Henry or John Hardy, and contests between steel-drivers were common, though there is no evidence of a contest between a man and a steam drill. In the library, ask each student to fi nd a folktale that has more than one version. Read the different versions and compare them. What changes between the stories? What do the stories have in common? What elements stand out as the most important points? Do research on the tale to fi nd out the facts behind the story. What really might have happened to inspire this folktale? KCC: RD-E-1.0.8, RD-E-2.0.8, SS-E-2.1.2, SS-E-5.1.1 Create Your Own Folk Tale Have each student create their own folktale about someone they know. Have them begin by gathering the following kinds of facts about the person. 1. Facts you know about this person 2. Abilities or dastardly deeds 3. An event or action that becomes legendary Next, extend the facts into a larger than life context. 1. Hero or heroine 2. Powers, capacities, lies 3. Metaphoric time and place Then, have the students write a one or two page tale based on the newly created hero or heroine. Finally, have them draw a picture from the story or design a statue commemorating their character. Travel by Railroad KCC: WR-E-1.3, SS-E-2.1.2, WR-E-1.4 Have students make maps of the railroads that crossed the U.S. in the 1800 s. Mark the important stops along the way, as well as which lines were used more commonly for passenger travel and which were used for freight. What signifi cance did the trains have for people living at that time? Have students accompany their maps with a fi rst-person account of traveling between two cities by train. What was the station like? Did they (as a passenger) eat or sleep on the train? How much luggage could he or she bring? What did he or she do to pass the time? What sort of scenery could be seen out the window? How fast was the train? Have students share their accounts with the class. KCC: WR-E-1.3, SS-E-5.1.2, RD-E-4.0.6, SS-E-4.1.4
Around the Bend COPY PAGE The Legend of John Henry takes place in West Virginia and tells the story of the creation of The Big Bend Tunnel. Although it can be diffi cult to pinpoint the exact birthplace of many folktales, some stories are better known in certain states or regions. Read through the following list of American folktales and the area(s) of the country with which each tale is usually associated. On the map below, mark the areas with a different color for each tale. Which regions of the country are brought together by similar folktales? How have folktales spread through the U.S.? Annie Oakley- Ohio Calamity Jane- Missourri, Dakotas, Arizona Davy Crockett- Tennessee, Texas Febold Feboldson- Nebraska, plains states Jim Bridger- Wyoming, Montana Joe Magarac- Pennsylvania John Henry- West Virginia, Alabama Johnny Appleseed- Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio Mike Fink- Ohio, Mississippi River Molly Pitcher- Pennsylvania Old Stormalong- Massachusetts, Atlantic Ocean Paul Bunyan- Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota Pecos Bill-Texas, New Mexico Sacajawea- Dakotas, Idaho KCC: RD-E-4.0.6, SS-E-2.1.1, SS-E-4.2.2, SS-E-4.4.2, SS-E-4.2.1 Slue-Foot Sue- Texas
John Henry: Tracing the Legend John Henry s competition with the steam drill at Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia has been preserved in song, or more specifi cally a ballad. However, variations in each version of the ballad has raised the question of who John Henry really was or if he existed at all. For some reason, the steel-driving hero was often confused with John Hardy, a song about a black outlaw who has hanged at Welch in 1894, after killing a man in a gambling dispute in the Shawnee coal camp. Even W.A. MacCorkle, the former governor of West Virginia, mixed up the two men. In a 1916 letter, MacCorkle wrote that John Henry, the famous steel driver at Big Bend Tunnel in the 1870 s, had later gone wrong and killed a man in the 1890 s. The historical record was fi nally set straight in the late 1920 s by Louis Chappell, a West Virginia University professor. Chappell showed beyond doubt that John Hardy was a small, tough man who was still in his twenties at the time of his hanging, making it impossible for him to have been a steel driver more that twenty years earlier at Big Bend Tunnel. The bigger question became: where was this Big Bend Tunnel? Variations of John Henry were being collected all over the country and beyond, with even a localized version from Jamaica. There was a stage play with the premise that John Henry challenged a steam-powered cotton-picking machine in a contest in the deep South. A children s book written in 1950 by Harold Felton John Henry and His Hammer has John Henry plowing fi elds and working on a steamboat before he begins working for the railroad. Guy B. Johnson, a University of North Carolina sociologist, published the fi rst book on the subject in 1929, John Henry: Tracking down a Negro Legend. Originally from Texas, Johnson did pioneering research into African-American culture. He searched for Big Bend Tunnel and John Henry lore all over the southern and western United States. The main seam was fi nally mined in 1933 when Louis W. Chappell of West Virginia University published John Henry: A Folk-Lore Study. Chappell spent the early part of his book nitpicking at Guy Johnson s remarks and research. Chappell, it seems, had been delving into John Henry s legend for years and was obviously angry that Johnson s book had been published fi rst, and with much less pertinent material. Chappell had extensive knowledge of what happened in Summers County in the early 1870 s. He knew a tunnel had been built through Big Bend Mountain near Talcott and since he did his legwork in the 1920 s, he was able to fi nd people who d been around during construction. Some of Chappell s sources claimed to have actually seen John Henry wielding his hammer, though their memories were often fuzzy. Which leads us back to Talcott, West Virginia which, it turns out, is only about 100 miles from the Logan County home of the Williamson Brothers & Curry, the fi rst West Virginians to record the ballad about John Henry in April 1927. We can only wonder: did the Williamson Brothers learn John Henry from the fi rst generation of the song s performers, not far from where it was written?
Extend the Experience Tall Tale Collage Have students make a collage illustrating a particular tall tale. Each collage will be a collection of clues so that other students can try to guess the folktale. For example, a collage for The Legend of John Henry might include pictures of a hammer, a mountain, a race horse, and train tracks. Hang the collages around the room and see how many can guess which tall tale is which! For more examples of other tall tales, see the previous copy page. KCC s: AH-E-4.1.42, SS-E-2.2.1 Driving Force Several times in the play, John Henry found he was good at other things than just driving steel. Why didn t he just stay on the riverboat and shovel coal? Why was it so important to John Henry to drive steel? Do you have goals you want to work toward? Do you think you can reach those goals right away or will you need to work for them by doing other things? Act It Out: Pictures from the Play After your discussion, ask your class to write personal refl ections pieces about their personal goals and what it is going to take for them to acheive them. DISPLAY IT: Ask your students to simplify their goal into a single sentence or phrase. (Be a Good Friend! or Honor Roll, Here I Come!) Then have your class create personal banners with their goal. They can decorate them with markers or other art supplies. Hang them around the room to inspire your class to reach their goals! KCC s: AH-E-1.1.12, AH-E-1.2.31, WR-E-1.3 Have students think about their favorite moments from the play. Ask them to think of one or two times during the play when they were the most drawn into the story. What do they remember seeing on stage, and at what point in the story did this moment happen? Divide them into groups of four or fi ve and have each group share these memorable moments with their group member. Then have each group choose three moments from the play to illustrate by making a frozen picture, or tableau. Students can play characters, and also objects or animals such as horses or the steam drill. Have each group show their series of frozen pictures in order to the rest of the class. After a group has shared their three pictures, have the groups choose one frozen picture to turn into a short scene with movement and dialogue. Students should consider what happened before and after this moment as well as during. KCC s: AH-E-2.1.12, AH-E-3.1.41
Tools of the Trade Learn more about steel-driving by drawing a line from each tool below to its description. After the rock is blasted with dynamite, the resulting rubble is moved out of the tunnel in CARTS. Name: Wooden beams called TIES are laid on the ground, following the line made by the surveyors. This heavy MAUL is used to hammer spikes into the railroad ties and to drive steel bits into hard rocks when tunneling through mountains. COPY PAGE Thirty foot long iron RAILS weighing 560 pounds each are laid on top of the ties. These are what guide the wheels of the train to keep it on the track. Workers use DYNAMITE to blast through rock when making a tunnel. This is much faster than breaking through the rock with picks or hammers. A STEEL BIT is held by the shaker as the steel driver hammers it into the rock.
Suggested Reading If you enjoyed reading and seeing The Legend of John Henry, here are some other books recommended by the Lexington Public Library: American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne Upstarts like Davy Crockett, giants like Paul Bunyan and gentle souls like Johnny Appleseed are among the nine tall heroes featured in this collection of traditional American folk tales. Casey Jones Fireman: The Story of Sim Webb by Nancy Farmer Even though the railroad fi reman senses danger ahead, he follows his engineer s command to increase the train s power so that the mysterious whistle blows. Paul Bunyan: a Tall Tale by Steven Kellogg Recounts the life of the extraordinary lumberjack whose unusual size and strength brought him many fantastic adventures. You Wouldn t Want to Work on the Railroad! A Track You d Rather Not Go Down by Ian Graham Get ready... as an Irish laborer living in the United States in the 1860s, you d have decided to help build the transcontinental railroad. It s back-breaking! You ll learn all about it in this funny history of railroad building. LCT Teaches in your School! Let LCT s professional artists bring their extensive experience into your classroom. An LCT residency program is designed to offer young people the opportunity to learn in a dynamic, fun and challenging way. LCT tailors a residency to the needs of your students, curriculum and budget. We offer residencies that range from a single visit to a month-long intensive program. Performance Workshops - Two-week intensive unit culminating in a performance. LCT provides all scripts, costumes, props and scenery. Empathy in Action - This residency is a week-long residency with a focus on anti-bullying and tolerance. Playwriting - Students will work to develop their creative writing skills through an interactive writing program. Science and Art - Students can explore a variety of scientifi c concepts using drama. Experience the wonders of nature, animals, bugs, weather, plants, recycling, or the rainforest through the use of roleplay, movement and pantomime. Call 254-4546 x233 or x226 TODAY!