| So You Want to Be A Hero Study Guide |
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SO YOU WANT TO BE A HERO: AMERICA’S RIPROARING TALL TALES So You Want to Be a Hero: America’s Riproaring Tall Tales is a one-woman show by Cathy Kaemmerlen in which she portrays three wives of some of our favorite tall tale figures: Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett, lovingest wife of Davy Crockett; Fanny Feboldson, wife of Febold Febolson, the inventingest farmer to ever hit the Midwest and Nebraska’s striped weather ; and Slue Foot Sue, the almost wife of Pecos Bill, the greatest cowboy to ever hit the West. Using three audience members to portray the “hero” husbands, and other audience members to play sound effect instruments and to operate props, this 50 minute show is a fun filled adventure of exaggerated storytelling, music, and larger than life characters who helped tame our young wild country from sea to shining sea. Artist BioCathy Kaemmerlen, professional actress, dancer, and storyteller, is known for her variety of characters, one-woman shows, and for her rapport with audiences. A performer and “creator of shows” since she can remember, she has toured in schools coast to coast, since receiving a BA in English/elementary education from UNC-Charlotte, and a MFA in dance performance/choreography/theatre at the University of Wisconsin. She tours through Young Audiences of Atlanta, the Georgia and South Carolina Touring Arts Rosters, Fulton County SAP, and has received numerous grants and honors. She has authored two books with the History Press: GENERAL SHERMAN AND THE GEORGIA BELLES and THE HISTORIC OAKLAND CEMETERY: SPEAKING STONES. Background on Art FormTelling stories is an oral tradition, dating back to when mankind first developed a language or form of communication. Storytelling is a universal way of passing down information to be saved and remembered for generations to come. It is an interactive art form in which the storytellers’ passion for the story, material, and information, is passed on to the audience, who sorts through, interprets, stores, and synthesizes what is heard. PrepareTeachers, please read this to your students. Today we are going to see a one-woman play entitled SO YOU WANT TO BE A HERO: AMERICA’S RIPROARING TALL TALES presented by an actress/storyteller named Cathy Kaemmerlen. She is going to portray the wives of three of our tall tale figures: Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett, the wife of Davy Crockett from Tennessee; Fanny Feboldson, wife of farmer Febold Feboldson who tried to tame the striped weather of Nebraska and mixed things up worse than ever; and Slue Foot Sue, the wife of Pecos Bill, our greatest Western cowboy. Tall tales are exaggerated stories about people who usually are made up, are larger than life, have difficulties and problems to solve, and solve their problems in outrageous and funny ways. You can laugh through these tales and be stretched into believing they are absolutely true. Warm Up Questions to set the stage for engaging students:
What is a tall tale?
Tall tale: an exaggerated story with a main character who has a problem to solve and solves it using humorous and improbable solutions and super human abilities.
Make a list of tall tale figures. Who are some modern day tall tale figures? What are the common aspects of a tall tale hero? Why do we have and need tall tale heroes? Make up your own tall tale hero and give him some problems to solve. Make the problems and the solutions as outrageous as possible. Share them with the class. Make up your own tall talk coming up with ridiculous answers to: How hot was it? (So hot you could fry eggs on the side walk.) How dry was it? (So dry that our cows tongues stuck out so low we tripped over them.) How bold were they? (Bold enough to eat the clothes off our clothesline and eat the clothesline too.) Resources:
Doc Stovall’s cd: Passing It Down: The Songs of the West and the Westward Expansion, amazon.com |
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