Learning Pack

Diary of a Wombat

Based on the books by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley
Adapted by Eva Di Cesare

Mothball, a curious marsupial, had grown bored of her daily routine. Days were spent sleeping, both in the morning and afternoon, until her evenings were filled with grazing on grass. Seeking excitement, she infiltrated the human world, wreaking havoc on doormats, bins and washing lines. Yet, in her mischief, she unwittingly taught the humans a thing or two about persistence and enjoyment. Her scratching, sleeping, and eating became cues for attention, rest, and relishing the simple moments. In the end, Mothball's escapades broke monotony for everyone and left behind valuable, if unexpected, life lessons.

This pack is designed to be used in your classroom and is perfect for students in Foundation to Years 1 and 2, you will find fun Drama activities that directly link to the Australian Curriculum. The pack also includes information about how we adapted the book for the stage.

Contents

Themes Making the Play Classroom Activities

Literacy

Creative and Critical Thinking

Personal and Social

Contents

Themes Making the Play Classroom Activities

Themes

Curiosity and exploration: Despite its simple routine, the wombat occasionally ventures into new territory, such as investigating a human's house or interacting with other animals. This theme reflects the innate curiosity that drives creatures, including humans, to explore their surroundings.

Resourcefulness and adaptation: The wombat creatively interacts with its environment to meet its needs, whether it's scratching on various objects or finding ways to access food. This theme underscores the adaptability and resourcefulness of animals in their quest for survival.

Humor and playfulness: The wombat's interactions with humans and other animals are portrayed in a lighthearted and comical manner. The book uses humor to engage readers and highlight the amusing aspects of the wombat's behavior.

Relationships and communication: The wombat's interactions with other animals, such as the humans and the dog, showcase the ways in which different species communicate and establish relationships. These interactions demonstrate the interconnectedness of the animal world.

Making the Play

The Vision

Theatre begins with an idea, a spark of imagination. This is what we call the vision.

At Monkey Baa our ideas come from all around us, we are inspired by the world we live in and the people we share it with. Many of our plays are based on picture books and novels by Australian authors and others from around the world.

Diary of a Wombat is an adaptation of a picture book by Australian author Jackie French and illustrator Bruce Whatley. It was the Monkey Baa team who thought it would make a great play. They put together a team of creatives and developed the idea into a show.

Meet the Author, Jackie French

Jackie French is an Australian author, historian and ecologist, 2014-2015 Australian Children’s Laureate, 2015 Senior Australian of the Year and an honorary wombat (part-time). Jackie has written over 200 books, some of which have sold millions of copies and won over 60 awards in Australia and internationally! Jackie was born in Sydney and grew up on the outskirts of Brisbane, however, she now lives in the Araluen Valley where she researches the species that live in the surrounding bushland around her home. Jackie has passionately written many environmental publications, and advocates for the protection of endangered species. When Jackie isn’t writing, she enjoys lunch with friends, harvesting fruit from her own trees, reading to her grandkids, trying to find her glasses, and eating dark chocolate. Jackie is dyslexic and a patron of literacy programs across Australia, with a wide and deep experience in learning differences, support methods, and their outcomes for students. Jackie is a passionate advocate for equal education opportunities.

Meet the Illustrator, Bruce Whatley

Bruce jumped into the unknown world of picture books after a career in advertising as an illustrator and art director working in London and then Sydney. Since 1992 Bruce has written and/or illustrated over 80 children’s picture books. Though based in Australia, his work is published internationally, and in 2014 was included in the Bologna Children’s Book Fair Exhibition. His main inspiration has been his family, who feature in several of his earlier picture books. His wife Rosie Smith has often been a co-author on many of his projects. He uses a variety of illustration mediums, including gouache, pen and ink, pencil, oils, watercolour and more recently CGI software. His aim is to entertain and surprise the reader with illustration styles that vary considerably depending on the text and the age group of his audience.

The Script

The vision is transformed into a script by a playwright.

Just as a poet writes poems, a playwright writes plays. They specialise in telling stories for the stage. Playwrights create and write characters, scenes and plots in a play. A play is a unique writing form, with two main elements: dialogue and stage directions.

The book that Diary of a Wombat is based on is written as a diary from the perspective of Mothball and because wombats don’t speak like humans, we had her tell her story through music. The human characters in the show do speak, but not very much! The text, emotion, atmosphere and story are created and told through cello music and other theatrical elements like set, costumes, props and sound.

At Monkey Baa, our process of adapting a picture book for the stage begins with young people. Each year our writers and directors visit schools around Australia and collaborate with students. Students are invited to participate in Drama workshops that explore the themes of the story through improvisation and play, plus engage in group discussions about the picture book and draft script, offering ideas about how the story should be told on stage.

The Rehearsal

Once a script is developed, it is handed over to a director and rehearsals begin.

A rehearsal is a practice session done before the play is seen by an audience. The rehearsal period is the time that leads up to the performance of a play. During this time, actors learn their lines and movement (called blocking), theatre designers dream up the world of the play, composers write the music and playwrights develop their scripts. This all happens under the leadership of the director, in this case, Eva Di Cesare.

The Design

As the show takes shape in the rehearsal room, the designer begins to create the world of the play.

They choose colours, textures, materials, lighting, walls, flooring, fabrics, graphics, backdrops, furniture, and everything else that brings a performance space to life.

Students can spot some of the surprising and interesting things that the set can do, and some surprising things that happen with the puppets! There are moving elements to the set, such as parts that revolve to show a change of place. Perspective and scale are also manipulated through the use of puppetry and through the set design. It’s useful to discuss how time passes and changes in setting can be created on stage through changing costume, lighting, sound, set configuration and/or music.

How is music used?

Oonagh writes the music for the show. In this production, the music is like the wombat’s voice. Oonagh plays the cello, a large string instrument, and she wrote the music for a cellist to play.

Mothball’s character is represented by a puppet, but her voice is characterised by a musical instrument called a cello. You will also hear the actor operating the puppet make sounds with her voice such as grunting or breathing, and the actor is wearing a microphone to amplify these sounds.

How is lighting used?

The lighting designer creates the pattern and configuration of lights that are on at different points of the show. Given theatre is usually indoors in a dark auditorium, lights play a huge part in illuminating and colouring the stage. The lights also tell the story, indicating the time of day, mood and other aspects of the stage action.)

How is sound used?

This person takes care of all the things you hear in a show, making sure the soundscape of the show helps tell the story. This is quite a technical as well as creative role. The sound designer chooses and manages audio equipment through which the audience hears the show. Kingsley also has to find sound effects and manage how the audience hears these.

The Performance

To bring it all together, actors help create characters, tell the story and bring the world of the play to life.

An actor interprets and plays characters in a performance. Sometimes characters are based on real people or are made up (fictional). These characters are based on the book Diary of a Wombat.

There are three actors and one cellist in the show. Mothball appears on stage as a puppet. The Mothball puppet you will see on stage is large, and it is worthwhile informing students the puppet wombat is larger than a real-life wombat.

Classroom Activities

Writing Activity: Diary Entry

Write a diary entry like Mothball.

Resources: Writing/drawing materials and/or device

Skills required: Writing, drawing, imagination

How it works: Read the book together as a class. Ask how Mothball’s diary is organised: Mothball’s diary is arranged by the days of the week. What are the days of the week? What are some of the things you did on different days of the week? Model sentence structure on the whiteboard or use enlarged imagery from the book. Work in small groups to write one of the days of the week on paper, decorating your page. Display these around the classroom. Perhaps add some details about the activities Mothball did on their matching days of the week.

Key question: what is the tense of a diary entry? Look for indicators in the book of past tense.

Drama Activity: Creative Roles

Resources: Writing/drawing materials and/or device

Skills required: Writing, drawing, imagination

How it works: Choose a theatrical creative role (for example: director, playwright, designer, actor, producer, stage manager). Write ten dot points about the responsibilities this job has in the theatre show. Join up with a classmate and create an interview for a job vacancy in Diary of a Wombat, taking turns to role-play the applicant and the employer.

Discussion: What sounds challenging about these jobs? What sounds exciting to you? Did you learn something brand new about these skills and professions?