Information Sheet for the Tale of Teeka

Information sheet for The Tale of Teeka

The play is set in Quebec in the 1950’s and young Maurice has taken refuge from his own disturbing world into a world full of fantasy. Alone on the family farm one day, he invites his pet goose into the house. Suddenly, his bedroom and bathroom are transformed into a fantastical Tarzan adventure land.

The early return of his parents throws Maurice back into the realities of his own turbulent childhood and he begins to panic. Maurice reacts in a surprising way.

This award winning play has toured all over the world to wide acclaim and was also made into a film which was showered with awards including the Golden Spine Award at the 1999 San Francisco International Film Festival and Banff Rocky Award for Best Children’s Program at the 1998 Banff Television Festival.

LEARNING AREAS

-friendships -dealing with anger

-play -abuse of power/bullying

-responsibility -feeling hurt

DISCUSSION POINTS

Being “home alone” – imagine how that would feel. If you and your best friend had the house to yourselves, what would you do?

Super heroes -do you have a favourite super hero?

Drama work: Create a short scene based around your super hero- start with a still image at the beginning of a scene- how does it feel to be that strong and powerful?

Art work: Look at characters in comics- what sort of things can they do that we can’t? Draw your own favourite character.

Literacy: look at/read stories which explore the relationship between a child and an animal/non human.

eg. Raymond Briggs The Bear

The Snowman

Anthony BrownGorilla

Judith KerrThe tiger who came to tea

# Important note to teachers #

In the play that the central character - Maurice (a 9 year old boy) - is being ill treated by his parents. This is something you should be aware of as the children may wish to talk about it afterwards.