PRODUCTION GUIDEInformation and activities for ages 6 & up.www.townofcary.org

A fantastical adventure about a girl’s search for home. Featuring actors ages 6-12; appropriate for all audiences.

Tickets are on sale now! Call (919) 462-2055 for details.

Iris lives in Nocturno, a magical land where residents work all night to create everything seen during the day. Iris lives with her mother; her father mysteriously disappeared years ago. The people of Nocturno wear Past Coats, which contain all their memories and are carefully maintained.

Nearby on Great Island, the rulers of Nocturno, the Great Gretta and Grotto Good, live with only the very best of everything. They choose Iris to be their perfect daughter and send their servant Mr. Matternot to get her. When Mr. Matternot takes Iris’s and her mother’s Past Coats, Iris’s mother, now “Miss Overlook”, cannot remember her daughter. Iris manages to keep one button from her Past Coat, but she doesn’t know what it means.

In her room on Great Island, Iris wonders about her past. Feeling lonely and trapped, Iris wishes for a friend, and Annabel Lee appears. Annabel also longs to be free, but her ship is lost. Another strange friend appears: Mozart, the young composer. He’s searching too; for a song he can’t seem to finish.

The Goods decide to keep Mozart as their perfect son, and give him a piano with one, perfect key. A tailor arrives to make a suit for Mozart; it is the Memory Mender, who repairs the Past Coats in Nocturno. The Memory Mender tells Iris her button will lead her to the little girl who lost it.

Annabel returns to tell Iris and Mozart about a pile of old coats she found along the shore. Iris confronts Mr. Matternot and the Goods about the coats. Mr. Matternot apologizes and tries to explain that he took Iris’s Past Coat to protect her from sad memories, but the Goods are furious. Annabel and Mozart bring the rest of the Past Coats, and Mr. Matternot realizes the Goods have stolen many, many memories over the years. With help from some other servants, the Goods are banished, Iris is released, and all the Past Coats are returned to their rightful owners.

Mr. Matternot returns Miss Overlook’s Past Coat to her, and she not only recognizes Iris as her daughter, but also Mr. Matternot as her long-lost husband, Iris’s father. Mr. Matternot puts on his Past Coat, and the family is reunited, returning to their home in Nocturno.

Activity: The Foggiest Idea

Find vocabulary words in bold on the back of this guide.

In the play, Iris is Nocturno’s Fog Lifter, and must raise and lower the fog. In reality, fog is a cloud that forms just above the ground.

Advection fog occurs when warm moist air blows horizontally over a cool surface. Radiation fog happens when a layer of cool, dry air forms on top of warm, moist air.

To make radiation fog: You will need 2 rinsed-out soda bottles ♦ Hot and cold water ♦ Ruler ♦ 2 ice cubesYou may need an adult to help

Fill one bottle with 1” of COLD water. Fill the other bottle with HOT water. After a few minutes, pour out all but 1” of the hot water. Place an ice cube in the neck of each bottle. What happened?

Activity: Memory Matters

Still Life with Iris takes place in the fictional worlds of Nocturno and Great Island. Ideas for scenic and costume designs for the play came from students in two Applause! Technical Theatre classes: Paper to Platform and Costume Crew. We hope you enjoy visiting these worlds as much as we have!

In NOCTURNO, Iris’s home, residents work diligently at night to create everything seen during the day. Nocturno is a place of hard work, but it’s also warm, loving, and friendly. Scenery and costumes are mostly earth tones; color is found in items the workers create, and in the linings of their Past Coats, which reflect each person’s own individual memories and experiences.

On GREAT ISLAND, everything is stark, sterile, and cold. The only color comes from the “perfect” items the Goods receive from Nocturno, which are showcased as if in a museum instead of used. There is no sense of comfort; only the Goods call Great Island “home”. Everyone else seems to want to leave this desolate place.

Both worlds are meant to seem a little disjointed and disconnected. To the characters, they seem worlds apart, although the audience can see they’re closer together than they appear.

When Iris lost her Past Coat, she lost memories of her past, her relationships, and her sense of self. But did it make her a different person?

Find a picture in a magazine, catalog, or book, and study it for one minute. Then, turn the picture over and write down everything you remember. Use these notes to create a simple story. Then, look at the picture again. If you forgot anything, would adding it to your notes change your story?

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The jagged appearance of Flint House in Buckinghamshire, England was one of the inspirations for the Still Life with Iris set.

Their names show how little these characters matter to the Goods!

Activity: Hear Me Roar!Each of the characters in Nocturno has a special talent, strength, or skill. What about you? What makes you unique? What would your job be if you lived in Nocturno?

Iris: Curious and smart, she’s very good at finding things. Becomes Nocturno’s Fog Lifter (sets down and lifts the fog).

Iris’s Mother: Wind Whisperer (teaches the wind to howl for a storm).

Iris’s Father: Day Breaker (ropes down the moon and lifts the sun).

Memory Mender: A tailor who repairs everyone’s Past Coat to protect their memories.

Flower Painter: Makes the flowers colorful.

Bolt Bender: Shapes lightning for a storm.

Leaf Monitor: Hazel and Elmer’s mother. Replaces fallen leaves with new ones.

Hazel & Elmer: Iris’s friends. Their chores include putting spots on ladybugs and stripes on zebras.

Grotto & Gretta Good: King and Queen of the island who care only for the very best things.

Mr. Matternot, Miss Overlook, Mr. Himtoo & Mr. Otherguy: Their only responsibilities are to serve the Goods.

GREAT ISLANDNOCTURNO

Now that you know a little more about how the worlds of Nocturno and Great Island look different from each other, you can probably guess that the characters who live in each place are very different, too. In Nocturno, characters have relationships to each other, specific characteristics, strengths, and qualities. On Great Island, it’s not the PEOPLE, but the THINGS that matter.

“Without us, the world would come to a standstill. If I abandoned my work,

the flowers would look [dull], instead of [colorful].”

Flower Painter, Still Life with Iris

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__________________ of Nocturno

Still Life with Iris is an award-winning play written by Steven Dietz, whose plays have been produced in American regional theaters, Off-Broadway, and in other countries. Two of the characters Mr. Dietz created for Still Life with Iris seem to have been inspired by history and literature.

Activity: Your Whole Life in There

Think of a memory from your past.

Where were you? Why were you there? Who was with you?

What do you remember with your senses: sights, sounds, tastes, smells?

Draw your memory in the button.

How does it shape who you are today?

Annabel Lee:“It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee”

Edgar Allan Poe wrote the poem “Annabel Lee” in 1864. The poem is about the narrator’s beautiful but painful memory of a woman he loves. Still Life with Iris is also about beautiful and painful memories.

Mozart:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was born in Salzburg, Austria to a musical family. He was a musical prodigy: when he was fourteen, Mozart wrote out the entire score of Misere from memory, after hearing it once!

Mozart composed over 600 works and was one of the most popular and influential composers of the Classical period.

In Still Life with Iris, the song Mozart is trying to finish is Eine KleineNachtmusik (“A Little Night Music”), a real serenade composed by the real Mozart in 1787.

Award-winning: In 1997, Still Life with Iris became the first play for young audiences to receive the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays Award.

Diligently: In a way that shows care and a desire to do something well, as in one’s work or duties.

Edgar Allan Poe: (1809-1849) An American writer, poet and critic, famous for tales and poems of horror and mystery. Works include "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Raven.“

Miserere: A setting of Psalm 51 by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri, probably composed during the 1630s. The music is used during services during Holy Week.

Off-Broadway: A professional theater in New York City; smaller than a Broadway theater, but generally larger than an Off-Off-Broadway theater.

http://andreathomasbrandley.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/7/1/17714633/still_life_educator_guide.pdfhttp://www.education.com/science-fair/article/fog-formation-fun/http://www.all-science-fair-

projects.com/science_fair_projects/21/283/cedd66fa08f7bbd324c3de7714dd8760.htmlhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44885https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Leehttp://www.shmoop.com/annabel-lee/summary.htmlhttp://www.biographyonline.net/music/mozart.htmlhttp://study.com/academy/lesson/eine-kleine-nachtmusik-history-analysis-composer.htmlhttp://www.biography.com/people/wolfgang-mozart-9417115https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160#synopsishttp://icebreakerideas.com/memory-games/

WANT TO KNOW MORE?Search “Applause” at www.townofcary.org or call (919) 465-4792.

Tickets on sale Jan 24; call (919) 462-2055 for details.

Produced by special arrangement with THE DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, IllinoisFirst commissioned and produced by Seattle Children’s Theatre