Characterisation and improvisation played a large part in this year's Christmas production, as children took the lead in developing their own version of the Nativity, says Tessa Fenoughty

As one of our goals this year is to raise the creativity in our children, we decided to encourage the children to tell their own story of the Nativity.

In the past, we'd always staged a nativity play for our parents, families and friends. We had always relied on commercially produced plays with accompanying vocal and backing tracks, scripts, stage directions and casting lists. These are excellent resources, produced by professionals who create accessible storylines and appropriately pitched songs for early years settings.

For run-down staff struggling to organise all the seasonal festivities at the end of the year, these resources are a godsend! It's the 'just add an egg' approach that we need to get us through the production season.

This year, though, we wanted the children to have the opportunity to develop their own understanding and interpretation of the story through improvisation rather than mechanically learning and delivering set lines. But encouraging greater creativity does not exist in a vacuum and cannot flourish among chaos. With children as young as three, we realised that some structure and direction were needed, but that they should be flexible enough to allow the children's own ideas to flow into their role play.

FINDING A STIMULUS

There are a number of fabulous children's stories retelling the story of the Nativity, but the all-time favourite of our children is Jesus' Christmas Party by Nicholas Allan (Red Fox). It tells the story of the very grumpy innkeeper who is frequently disturbed in the night by a succession of visitors to his stable in Bethlehem. When we read this story to the children, they were immediately engaged by the strong repetition in the storyline:

But then there was another knock at the door.

'We are three shepherds.'

'Well, what's the matter? Lost your sheep?'

'We've come to see Mary and Joseph.'

'ROUND THE BACK,' said the innkeeper.

Before even getting to the end of the story, the children were intuitively shouting out the innkeeper's response 'Round the back' when the kings and the shepherds enquired into the whereabouts of the baby Jesus. So, we decided to base our nativity play around the innkeeper constantly answering the door. This gave us a simple and strong hook on which to hang the rest of the storyline.

TYPECASTING AND CHARACTERISATION

One major advantage of creating our own version of the story is that we could build it around the strengths of the children in our group. Our eldest class member, Luke, aged five, naturally emerged as the innkeeper, with four-year-old Katie stepping confidently into the role as his bossy but long-suffering wife, who also gets woken up each time there is a knock at the door.

But what kind of characters would Luke and Katie play? Could our actors begin to imagine how their characters might act? Did they have the maturity and ability to empathise? The only phrase we had built the storyline around was 'round the back', so we were relying heavily on the children to come up with the rest of the script.

It took some coaxing and a lot of patience before many of the cast wanted to join in and share their ideas. During our initial drama sessions we wondered if we had given ourselves an impossible task. We quickly realised that the role of the adult is crucial; without adult guidance, the children found it hard to achieve the depth of thinking and imaginative involvement required to generate the characterisation. And then, just as we thought we were getting nowhere, Luke delivered a classic line to the kings at his door.

Luke: 'What da ya want?'

Kings: 'We've come to see the baby.'

Luke: 'Round the back... where the sheep and the horses are... and mind the cow pats!'

Brilliant! The comic timing was superb. He beamed a mischievous smile, and after that the confidence of the group grew and more improvisation started to occur. Luke had used his first-hand knowledge of farming conditions here in the Pennines, and linked it creatively to the scene at the stable in Bethlehem.

EVALUATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

Not being specialist drama teachers and with little expertise in improvisation, we approached the task with some trepidation. However, it has all been a valuable learning experience for the staff. We discovered that:

  • - Although stories are a great source as an initial stimulus, the Nativity story is so well known that we found it limited some children's creativity. The traditional storyline overwhelmed and stunted children's imagination and ideas; this was particularly the case with the younger group members.
  • - For future drama activities, we may use the beginning of a story as a starting point, but thereafter encourage the children to imagine how the story might unfold.
  • - By breaking down the story into individual scenes we could take smaller groups of actors and work on their characterisation without the rest of the cast getting restless. At rehearsals our shepherds initially stood like statues when Angel Gabriel descended! So, I took a small group aside and we discussed how they would feel if an alien appeared, hovering above their heads in the playground. We then made model angels from resources in the classroom and imagined what we would say to them. Gradually, the small group of actors started to open up and offer their ideas.
  • - Watching and listening carefully to individual actions and reactions enabled us to incorporate many of their ideas into the play. For example, our initial plan was that Mary and Joseph would walk slowly across the stage to the innkeeper's door during the song 'Little Donkey'. However, as soon as the music started they were off, marching up and down the school hall. After that the kings, shepherds and angels all insisted on proceeding up and down through the audience - and it looked great, so we've kept it in.

Our nativity performances take place at the end of term and we hope the children feel secure enough to take their characters and deliver their words and actions with confidence. Whether or not Luke will repeat his one-liner on the night remains to be seen. But, as the aim of the process was to encourage the children to develop their creativity, which we believe the whole learning experience has achieved, it really doesn't matter.

Tessa Fenoughty is foundation stage teacher at Middleton-in-Teesdale Primary School, Co Durham

 

RESOURCES

  • - Jesus' Christmas Party by Nicholas Allan (Red Fox)
  • - Commercially produced nativity plays for younger children by Out of the Ark, www.outoftheark.co.uk. 'It's a Baby' and 'The Very Hopeless Camel' are some of our favourite commercially produced nativity productions.
  • - Backing tracks of traditional Christmas carols, such as www.educationalmusicals.com
  • - Practical Primary Drama by Geoff Davies (Heinemann) was a helpful read and gave some good advice on how to get started teaching drama in primary schools

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Developing language

Developing imaginative thinking

Developing the ability to look at a situation from another's point of view

Putting the sequence of movements together to retell a story

Using imagination to tell the story through role play