Backstage

In the backstage childen can create the world of their story. They choose which scenes to include, which charaters to play and which items should appear in their magic world.

The backstage is divided into two different rooms (screens): the stage room, and cast room.

The stage room

In the stage room children choose which scenes they will have in their story and place the characters and the items on those scenes.

The first thing to do is to choose, from a predefined set, which scenes are suitable for the story. Several copies of the same scene can be used (e.g. if they like they can have two witch houses). Scenes have magic doors that children can link from one scene to another (see Fig. 1). This way scenes get connected and characters can move from scene to scene on the OnStage phase.

Fig. 1. - The stage screen. Choosing the scenes.

After deciding which scenes to use, it's time to place the items and the characters. Both are placed inside the scene where they should first start.

Items are chosen from a pre-defined set which include magic wands, a mirror, a key, a basket... Children can drag those items into the scene and place one copy there. They can place as many copies as they want (in the same scene or on different scenes).

Characters became only available when defined on the cast room (see Fig. 2). Afterwards they can be draged into the scenes in the same way as items.

The cast room

Here children define the characters that are involved in the story. To define a character they need to choose an actor and give it a name and a role. (see Fig. 2)

Fig. 2 - The cast screen. Choosing the characters.

They have 8 actors available (see list). All of them can play the 6 roles: hero, villain, magician, parent, beloved-one or helper - these roles were chosen based on Vladimir Propp's work. The same actor can appear in the story more than once, but must be given a different character name. (e.g. we can have two witches in our story, one named Babayaga and the other Eudial).

All characters defined become available in the stage room. Their they should be placed inside one scene. Characters that are not placed are not considered in the story.