 I'm Jillian Jorgensen. I'm the Education Director for Bookit Repertory Theatre. My name is Nora. I'm in sixth grade. My name is Ruchi. I'm in second grade. For today's lesson, we are going to explore a story called a very deep hole in the ground with a very dangerous creature at the bottom. Dun, dun, dun! Okay, to do this story, you need a lot of imagination and you need a few props because we're not really going to dig a hole in our apartment floor. Here's what you're going to need. To make your hole in the ground, you'll need something to make an outline of the pit. Blue tape or yarn or string. You could also use pillows to make a border. You could even use stuffed animals. Any of those things will work to make a pit. Hey, Nora. What should we use to make it look like there's a pit in our apartment? Well, since we can't dig a hole, we could build things up from the ground. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's one way. What else? What else could we do, Ruchi? Well, if we built things up from the ground, if it was a very deep hole, then we couldn't exactly step over the things. Just be like, hey, this is cool. It's not too tall at all. Oh, yeah. Okay, so what we're trying to figure out is how we're going to make that hole and it takes some talking, just like how I was talking to Nora and I was talking to Ruchi. So when we actually make our hole, our very deep hole in the ground, we're going to take some time to talk to each other to figure something out so that we all agree about how it looks. Okay, we've made our pit. We used masking tape and taped it right on the floor in a rectangle. That's the shape that I used, but it could be a circle or an octagon or a rhombus or any shape you want for a pit. If you live somewhere where you can't tape on the rug or the floor, you can also make your pit out of pillows. You can make a shape that is a border of the pillows. Now that we've got our pit, there's only one thing to do. What? Fall into it. Nora? Yes. Will you please fall into a pit? I will. Okay, so this very deep hole in the ground, Nora knows where it is. There's the solid part and we know this is very, very deep. Okay, Nora, take it away. Look at me walking on this very stable ground, looking at this very stable forest where I'm walking and I'm not expecting a pit, but I mean, what could go wrong? Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. My poor child has fallen into a very deep hole in the ground and I have learned that if I wanted to try this again, I might make my pit a little bit larger so it could really look like falling down. Nora, hey, what's down at the bottom of that pit? Sharks. Sharks. Oh, no. All right, get out of that pit. Ruchi, are you ready to show us your terrible fall into the pit? In slow motion. Oh yeah, will you do it in slow motion? Yeah. Awesome. Okay, going over. Oh, look at that. See, it's only a pit when we need it to be a pit. It's a pit now. Nora, can you scooch that way a little bit? No, thank you for asking for space for your body. Oh my goodness. Ruchi has fallen and rolled all the way down. Ruchi showed us in slow motion that she could do something a little more dangerous, a trip, and then falling on her head, but she protected her head. Do you like that? Hey, Ruchi, what's a one word thing of something that's down at the bottom of the pit with you? Dirt. Dirt. Hey, my friends, if we had some really dangerous animals at the bottom of this pit, some very dangerous animals, I would be very scared. So instead, I know Nora and Ruchi have each chosen one of their own stuffed animals. Nora, who did you choose? I chose this very dangerous skunk and her name is Roosevelt. I chose this super ferocious cheetah and her name is Licky. Okay, thank you. Will you please show the time that Roosevelt and Licky were racing each other and didn't know what pit was there and fell in? When I say once upon a time, you show that race. Got it? What am I going to say? Once upon a time. What am I going to say? Once upon a time. Okay, go ahead and put Licky on this side so we can see Licky. There we go. Once upon a time. Ready? What are we doing again? We're wasting each other from the other side to this floor. Oh, so you're going to be where I am and I'm going to be where you are? Yes. And we have to see who gets to the other side first. Okay. Ready, set, come down and see what's going on. Nope. Thank you, Roosevelt. Thank you, Licky. Now we've got two dangerous animals at the bottom of the pit. And they're very angry. Okay, leave them there. Ruchi, come back closer to me. What are we doing? All right. Now let's imagine what could happen next in our story. Ruchi, you just said that they were angry. So now we've got the story of two angry animals down there. Ruchi, would you want to act it out? Write it out or draw it? Actually. Oh, yeah. I noticed that Ruchi was having pretty good time using her animals and her body and her voice to imagine this whole story. Nora, what about you? Would you want to write it down, act it out, or draw it? Well, I think my first choice would be to act it out, but I could also draw it in like a comic book format. Oh, sure. Cool. Yeah, with like different shapes and the shapes of the pit, too. Yeah. I think that what I would want to do is actually go back to the other activity and just keep falling and falling and falling in a pit because that sounds really fun to me. Same. Yeah. Because it's not even real, but we still get to do it. To fall in the bottom of a very deep pit and then maybe rescue our animals. Maybe rescue the animals. Yeah, but if we rescue the animals, we have to get them out of the pit and now we're going to do that. I don't know how we get them out of the pit. That's our story and I wonder what your story might be. I really love drama true because I get to explain things that are scary in real life, but I know that they're safe in my imagination. Drama true is when you look all around you and it's your imagination that you see. It's kind of like pretending with a purpose. Real true is when everything is just as it is. Sometimes my imagination does run away with me in drama true and I need a little help to find my way back to real true. Sometimes my helpers are Nora and Ruchi, the two kids who are mine who did the story with us today. You can do the story of a very big hole in the ground with a very dangerous creature at the bottom with your family or with your neighbors or you can even figure out how to do it all by yourself. Happy creating!