Activity: Storytelling Variations

Theatre is, at its most basic, a storytelling art. Its strength is its versatility, the way it can, in the hands of a talented director and cast, bring so many forces to bear on the story - music, movement, voices, shifts in time, shifts in space.

It is interesting to note the way our audiences evolve and become more sophisticated "readers" of theatre - our productions for younger audiences tend to be more linear, to follow a straightforward arc, and as the recommended age moves upward, the narratives become less linear, the transitions more allusive. Our older audiences have a better understanding of story structure, giving our artists the freedom to tweak that structure in service to the story.

Below are three storytelling exercises suitable for kids 8 or 9 and up that develop listening skils and imagination, and that encourage participants to become more familiar with story structure. And, really, they are fun and suitable for adults as well.


Story Orchestra

Choose one participant to be the story conductor, and arrange other participants in a line shoulder-to-shoulder. The conductor chooses a story the group knows (maybe The Neverending Story) or a general prompt (perhaps a fantastic journey). When the conductor points at an individual participant, he or she tells a part of the story and when the conductor stops pointing, that participant stops. The next participant who is pointed at must pick up the story where the previous person left off. The conductor should pick participants at random and point at them for a variety of different lengths of time.


7 Sentence Story

Arrange all of the participants in a circle. One at a time, they share the prompt (list below) and then add onto the story so that it all logically connects.

Once upon a time...
Until one day...
And because of that...
And because of that...
And because of that...
Until finally...
And ever since then...

Variation: Assign a leader to read off each prompt, and then participants physically express what happens next in the story using only movement. The leader says, "Once upon a time..." and the particiapnts create a frozen picture, rather than saying it loud, or what happened "once upon a time."


Beaded Story

This activity builds on the previous two; it demands a basic knowledge of story structure. If you try these activities with children, we recommend you start with one of the above before trying the Beaded Story.

One participant, let's call him/her A, steps forward and shares the middle sentence of a story. (Note: Advise everyone to keep sentences short, as they will be repeated.) The next participant, B, stands to the right of A and adds the sentence that comes after the middle sentence in the story. Then A and B share what they have so far. The next participant, C, stands to the left of A and adds a sentence describing what happened before the middle sentence of the story. After each participant adds a sentence, repeat what sentences you have so far, from left to right. Then have another participant, D, stand on the right of B and add a sentence that comes after B's. Continue adding participants to alternating sides, adding sentences that come before or after what had already been told, repeating everything you have so far each time, from left to right. Play until the end of the story is reached or all participants have been added.

All sentences should be logically reflect what has happened before or after in the story. All the before action should be on the left side of the first participant and all the after action should be to the right side of the first participant.


Give them a try! And share the results - we'll publish the best of any stories sent to our blog moderator on Behind the Curtain.