The Snow Queen
by Hans Christian Andersen
Adapted and directed by Romas Viksraitis
guest artist from Vilnius, Lithuania
December 2, 5, 6, 8, 2005 1:00 p.m. Lawrence schools
December 7, 2005 1:00 p.m. Rural schools
Tickets for school matinees are $2.50. Complimentary tickets are available for teachers and students on free/reduced lunch programs.
Saturday, December 3, 2005 10:00 a.m. Public performance
Sunday, December 4, 2005 2:30 p.m. Public performance
All performances are in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre, Murphy Hall
Tickets are $5 for K-12 students, $10 for adults, and $9 for senior citizens
For tickets, call the University Theatre Ticket Office, 864-3982, or order online at www.kutheatre.com. The ticket office is open from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday
Most appreciated by families and children ages nine and up.
Children with hearing difficulties may use special hearing
devices in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre (provided by Friends
of the Theatre). Teachers should make arrangements in advance with Joe Bearden (864-5576) or the University Theatre Ticket Office (864-3982).
Preview for Teachers and Parents
7:00 p.m. Friday, November 18
Parents, teachers, librarians, and other school staff are invited to attend the final run-through rehearsal of The Snow Queen in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall. The purpose of this preview is to acquaint you with the play and its final, actor-rehearsal stage before finished scenery, costumes, lights, and sound are added during technical week, so you may prepare students in advance of their attendance the following week. The rehearsal is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. and to run non-stop until approximately 8:30 p.m. We encourage you to ask questions and to discuss the play and its performance techniques with us. Lawrence teachers may obtain In-Service Points through Ann Bruemmer, Arts and Humanities Coordinator.
Drama Workshops
Actors from The Snow Queen and Jeanne Klein will be available to visit elementary classrooms for schools which attended this production. A free, one- hour (or less) drama workshop with actors is intended to extend the play’s themes, to encourage students to role-play analogous situations, and to answer questions about this production and theatre. Contact Joe Bearden, TYP Assistant, (bearden@ku.edu) or Jeanne Klein (864-5576) to schedule a classroom visit.
The Story of The Snow Queen
A teacher begins to animate the story of The Snow Queen to a group of school children who become so excited that they start to take on the lives of the characters. Each child finds an appealing character to play, and they begin to see all of the characters in each other.
Scene 1: A wicked hobgoblin (the Troll) creates a mirror which makes everything in the world look bad. When the mirror breaks, its millions of tiny pieces fly into the air....
Scene 2: One winter, a small boy named Kay (pronounced Kie) sees a large snowflake transform into the wicked Snow Queen that Gerda’s grandmother had warned him about. The next spring he feels a sharp jab in his eye–a splinter from the mirror–and another pierces his heart and turns it to ice. Gerda cannot understand why her best friend has changed into a cruel and cold-hearted person. The next winter, the Snow Queen returns on her sledge (a sleigh) and Kay, blinded by her dangers, flies away with her through the swirling snow to her icy castle in the far north. When she kisses him, his heart grows even colder.
Scene 3: The next spring, Gerda decides to search for Kay by floating down the river in a boat. She meets an Old Woman who casts a magic spell upon her to make her forget Kay. But when Gerda sees roses painted on the woman’s hat, she remembers how much Kay used to love roses, and she runs away.
Scene 4: In the forest, Gerda meets a Crow that thinks Kay may have married a princess. But when the Prince, sleeping in a red lily in the castle, turns out not to be Kay, the Princess gives Gerda her golden carriage to help her search the world for Kay.
Scene 5: In the dark forest, Gerda meets a Little Robber Girl who imprisons her in the robbers’ castle. The girl’s pet Pigeons have seen Kay in the frozen north of Lapland. Her Reindeer takes Gerda on its back to journey north to find Kay.
Scene 6: In Lapland, Gerda meets a Lapp Woman who directs her further with a message written on a dried fish to her friend in Finland. The Finn Woman realizes that Gerda must get the splinters out of Kay’s heart. She tells the Reindeer that Gerda needs no other magic because her heart is already pure and innocent, having come this far already. The Reindeer takes Gerda as far as the Snow Queen’s garden, where huge snowflakes, the Queen’s Guards, transform into vicious animals. Gerda tells the Guards to leave her alone, and her warm steamy breath transforms into Angels to chase the Guards away.
Scene 7: Meanwhile, Kay sits in the empty hall of the Snow Queen’s vast lake, which she calls “The Mirror of Reason.” He tries to solve the Snow Queen’s puzzle with blocks of ice to form the word “Eternity” that she said would make him his own master, but his cold heart can’t do it. Gerda finds him there at last, but when she hugs him, he does not recognize her. She cries hot tears onto Kay’s chest to wash away the cold splinter of glass in his heart, and Kay’s own tears wash away the glass splinter out of his eye. When they dance for joy, the blocks of ice dance into the word “Eternity” to free Kay forever. Gerda and Kay return to the garden where two Reindeer take them back to all the people Gerda had befriended on her long journey. They finally arrive home, having grown-up, and their bad memories of the Snow Queen vanish.
Read the complete, 19-page story on the web: (www.hca.gilead.org.il/snow_que.html) or other picture book retellings by Lesley Sims (2004), Eileen Kernaghan (2000), Ken Setterington, Nelly and Ernst Hofer (2000), or Neil Philip (1989).
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
Celebrating his Bicentennial around the World
Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805, 200 years ago, to a poor family in Odense, Denmark. While growing up there, he listened avidly to old folk tales told by elderly women at Odense Hospital (or workhouse) and dreamed of a different life in theatre:
1816 (age 11): “My father has died. The best gift my father gave me was the theatre he made for me, but now I’m tired of my puppets. I hate being poor. I want to leave this small town and become famous.”
1819 (age 14): “I’m running away to Denmark’s largest city, Copenhagen. I’ll be a star in Copenhagen. I have no money, no work, no friends. I want to be a singer! I want to be a dancer! I want to be an actor!”
1820 (age 15): “Success! I’ve been hired to perform at the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen!”
1821 (age 16): “Another rejection! I lost my job. My voice is changing.”
1822 (age 17): “More rejection. Every play I’ve written has been rejected. Is it because I can’t spell?”
1828 (age 22): “I’ve become a published author!”
1835 (age 30): “I am really famous now. My very first novel is being read all over Europe, but I make up fairy tales in my head. I think I’ll begin to publish them as well.”
1845 (age 40): The Snow Queen is published in a collection of fairy tales.
1875 (age 70): “As I look back on my life, I’m surprised that my fairy tales seem to be my most popular works. The best known are The Princess and the Pea, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Nightingale, and The Snow Queen. (No one must ever know that the Ugly Duckling was really me.)”*
* From Andersen’s autobiography compiled in the Cuesheet published by the Education Department of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Students may learn more about Andersen’s life and work at www.hca2005.com.
The Lawrence District Resource Center also owns the 1952 film of Hans Christian Andersen, starring Danny Kaye, on video which runs 112 minutes.
An Interview with Romas Viksraitis
artistic director of Elfu Theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania
by John Staniunas
University Theatre artistic director
JS: What is the difference between your radio play of The Snow Queen that you adapted for broadcast on Lithuanian Radio and what you will stage here at the University of Kansas?
RV: The story on stage will move much faster, with more of the sound effects coming from the actors, but the music from the radio play will be the same.
JS: Why do you use the convention of the Author and the Troll throughout the play?
RV: They are the central storytellers, almost like a comedy team, with one smart and the other funny, but slow. The Troll is a comedic device character to comment on the story. The Author and the Troll can do anything they want in telling the story. They can become flowers, or snowflakes, or guards, but they are always the Author and the Troll.
JS: What about the other actors?
RV: The Author gets the other actors to agree to take on many different roles as the story evolves.
JS: What does the Snow Queen represent to you?
RV: When Kay is blinded by the shards of the broken mirror, he becomes very smart in math and science and starts to speak very logically. He is not a bad boy for seeing the world this way, but Gerda does not understand why he has become so cold. Kay is deeply interested in the unique nature of the snow flake, how it is made, and how it is mathematically possible for each one to be so unique. He thinks he is as clever as a snowflake.
JS: And why did Andersen use the Snow Queen as his device?
RV: I think that Andersen was ahead of his time. He was living at a time when science and math were moving very fast in the world. He believed, I think, that mathematics and the development of science would destroy the heart and make it cold and unfeeling. We, of course, must use our brains to make life better, and everything is about calculations; but the one thing that Kay forgets how to do is to have faith and to feel his heart warm again. Gerda brings him back to this world with her faith that she will find Kay and bring him home. She does not use math or science. She uses her ability to warm the hearts of all whom she encounters.
JS: What about the character of Gerda?
RV: Her journey is central to the story, but as storytellers, we must always be aware of the action and try to find the conflict in each world that Gerda encounters. The other actors will move Gerda as a group through the story–literally moving her, picking her up, and lifting her to different places on her journey. She encounters dangerous situations, and the conflict is how Gerda finds a way out of each of these dangers.
Curricular Connections
Reading and Interpreting Fairy Tales
After reading Andersen’s original story:
• Retell the main actions or plot of the story in your own words
• Explain how one event causes or gives rise to the next event
• Identify the major conflict in the story and how it is resolved
• Describe the major characters’ personality traits, feelings,
actions, and motives
• Describe the different settings of the story
• Identify the main idea or theme of the story with implied or explicit ideas from the story
• Identify the magical elements that make this story a fairy tale
Now imagine you will adapt this fairy tale to the stage in live theatre:
• Which major events would you choose to dramatize? Why?
• How would your actors show these magical events with their bodies and voices?
• What would your settings look like?
• What would your costumes look like?
These are the kinds of questions playwrights, directors, and designers ask themselves when they adapt a story to the stage.
No Two Snow Flakes or Snow Queens Are Alike!
11:00 a.m. Saturday, November 12, Lawrence Arts Center
Parents, teachers, and students are invited to attend a public forum which compares the similarities and differences between the Eastern European version of The Snow Queen at University Theatre in December 2005 and the Seem-To-Be Players’ U.S. version directed by Ric Averill and Deb Bettinger in December of 2006. Scenes from both productions will be performed and John Staniunas will moderate a discussion with the directors and designers.
Visualize Northern European Geography
Hans Christian Andersen traveled all over Europe and visited many different places and people. Find Denmark and Finland on a map and study the effects of winter on these cultures.
The Snow Queen has been illustrated in many different ways by many different artists over the years. See a group of illustrations at www.surlalunefairytales.com and compare their images of the Snow Queen. Which one is your favorite? Why?
Visit www.kutheatre.com to see some designs for our production.
Teacher’s Guide compiled by Jeanne Klein
We’d love to hear your ideas about our production! Please make copies for students and return completed reviews to Jeanne Klein, KU Theatre for Young People, 1530 Naismith Drive, Lawrence, KS 66045.
Play Review of The Snow Queen
Reviewed by (name optional) __________________________
School _________________________ Grade _____________
1. During the play, I imagined or felt:
2. During the play, I felt like (character name) _______________
when:
because:
3. At the end of the play, Gerda learned (a main idea):
because:
4. The thing I liked best about the production was:
because:
5. The thing I liked least about the production was:
because: