“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”
(As You Like It, Act II Scene VII)
Over the Easter holidays this apt quote became a reality but it was the kids in the museum who became the performers, playwrights, set designers and directors! As part of the Digital Kids activities the museum was awash with talent as our young audiences devised and staged their own animated versions of Shakespeare inspired plays created using iPads.
Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Digtial Kids workshops were part of the Shakespare Festival, a celebration held at the V&A throughout April 2014 to mark the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, probably the most well-known playwright the world has produced.
A family drawing characters for their play Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Our young playwrights devised adventousous and witty storylines, and created their plays using an app called Puppet Pals. They hand drew their characters before photographing and editing them. They also featured in their own plays and used the iPad cameras to take pictures of themselves dressed up in costumes. Characters ranged from the historical to the fantastic.
Image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
After selecting and drawing various backdrops for each scene and putting the finishing touches to their scripts they hit the record button and animated their characters movements whilst recording the diologues.
The plays – which featured comedy, tragedy, romance and drama- were made in numerous languages including English, French, Portugese, Japanese and Spanish. They were all given titles by their makers. ‘Macbeth gets slain by the Doughnut of Destiny’ was one such imaginatative and catchy title!
The plays were uploaded to our YouTube channel and were also simultaneously screened in the V&A’s Learning centre giving hundreds of children the first opportunity to be present at their own premiere.
We had some great visitor feedback by children and their parents:
“I loved this activity because I love writing plays and I get to be in this play so I had a brilliant time. “
Ruby, Brighton aged 7
“This was fabulous. Coming to these workshops is a regular holiday activity and it’s definitely one of my favourite things as a parent. The kids love to play with new software and look back at their creations at home.”
Elaine G.
Every school holiday we run Digital workshops for families to come along and try. If you would like to see what’s coming up, take a look at our listings page.
Details of the next Digital Kids activities can be found here: http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3160/digital-kids-may-half-term-4570/
