1 review for Fairytale High

1. Marlene F Magee – May 13, 2014

   “The script came about when the original class bounced around some ideas for a class play. We agreed on using fairytales as a starting point as the stories are already established and the characters are familiar and fun to perform. The class decided to not only modernise a fairytale but to use a combination of fairytales, like a fractured fairytale, which they were familiar with. We decided to set the play in a high school and base it around the students’ experiences of teenage life, such as nagging parents, boy / girl relationships, going out, eating junk food, student groups and clicks, students misbehaving, gossip, the canteen line, being a new kid and teachers teaching. (The Giant was originally a level co-ordinator because at our school that person was responsible for giving detentions etc.). The students came up with characters they wished to play and helped to write their dialogue. Once we had the characters, some basic plot lines and a first scene, I went ahead and developed an overall storyline, tying all the various subplots together. So the aim was, I suppose, to send up life at high school. We also wanted to send up fairytales by taking the well known characters and putting them in situations outside their ‘stories’ and by putting a twist on things. Therefore, the play could be called a spoof or a satire. It also has some good verbal comedy and jokes that capitalize on these situations.Later, when the play was rewritten, I decided to modernise the play further by including references to popular culture, for example, celebrities, weight loss fads, the gay scene, feminism, fashion, womens’ magazines, computers, mobile phones and slang. Some students assisted with this. The idea for calling The Three Bears Mary, Kate and Ashley came from a conversation I overheard in Kmart. Two teenage girls were showing a teenage boy two new Mary-Kate and Ashley dolls. He asked them in all seriousness where the third doll was. Poor boy. They had to explain. As for production notes, there’s not much I can add to those that are already in the script, except, perhaps, to suggest that, if possible, you have some scenes take place in front of curtain, such as the Wicked Queens’ office scenes. It’s best to keep props and sets really simple, to avoid long scene changes.