An outline
Tiny Dancer is based on Gillian Lynne’s life.
Synopsis: Julie is a lively and restless eight years old girl who loves playing, jumping, singing, running, dancing, etc. She is so energetic that her family sometimes feels tired of her behaviour but she is a nice girl and everybody loves her.
Julie is a happy girl but she is having important problems at school because of her restless behaviour and her lack of attention in class. One day her teacher advices Julie’s mother to take the girl to a specialist since the teacher thinks Julie might have a learning disorder, she could be a case of DHAD.
Her mother takes her to the doctor and when the doctor evaluates Julie he realizes that the girl is not sick and the only problem she has is that she is a dancer. Then the doctor tells Julie’s mother to send the girl to a dance school. Since the very first moment Julie enters the dance school she loves that place because she finds it is full of people like her, people who cannot stand still and is moving around all the time.
Eventually, Julie becomes a famous dancer, she starts her own dance company and she is happy because she succeeded finding her place in life.
Characters: Narrator, Julie, father, Mrs. Smith (the mother), grandad, 3 Julie’s friends, teacher, doctor, dancers.
Character Objectives:
Narrator: tells the story at specific momments of the drama.
Julie: restless eight years old girl. She is a lively happy girl and does not understand what is wrong with her. Everybody wants her to be stand still and calm but she cannot do it the way they want. She does not understand the older people’s demands because she feels the need of moving about most of the time.
Father, mother and grandad: they love Julie but they would like Julie to be more calm.
Friends: children with whom she usually plays.
Teacher: she is tired of Julie’s behaviour in the classroom and she is unable to manage the situation. She thinks Julie might have a DHAD and advices her mother trying to get some help.
Doctor: a clever person, who after listening to Julie’s mother report realizes that Julie does not need medicines, she only needs to fulfill her need to move and dance.
Dancers: children dancing at a dance school.
Organisation: Divide the class into two groups. Group One can act out Scenes 1-4. Group Two can act out scenes 5-7.
Scene 1: Playing with friends
Scene set in a playground. Narrator presents Julie while she is playing with some of her friends behind. When the narrator stops talking the children speak aloud about their play.
Scene 2: Problems at home
Julie is at the table with her parents and her grandad, and they are complaining about her behaviour both at home and at school.
Scene 3: Problems at school
Julie is at school and her teacher is scoulding her because she would not finish her homework on time and she is disturbing the class.
Scene 4: What is going on?
She is alone in her bed and she is crying and talking to herself. She is upset because cannot understand what is wrong with her. She does not understand older people’s complaints about her.
Scene 5: My teacher’s advice
The teacher explains Julie’s mother she thinks Julie could have a learning disorder and advices her to take Julie to a specialist.
Scene 6: A visit to the doctor
Julie and her mother are in the doctor’s office. The doctor listens to Mrs. Smith talking about Julie’s problems and leaving the girl alone, turning on the radio and observing the girl’s reaction he realizes that Julie is not sick. She is a dancer. He recommends to take Julie to a dance school.
Scene 7: This is my place!
Julie talks to the audience about her own feelings and thoughts the first day she went to the dance school. She was amazed and delighted finding children like her dancing and moving around the dance floor, very concentrated on their activity. Doing what they really liked. While she is speaking a group of children is dancing behind her.
Scene 8: Happy end
The narrator tells the audience how successful was Julie’s career as a soloist dancer. Later on she started her own dancing company and became a very well-known choreographer.
This scene ends with a choreographed dance involving everyone in the performance.
