Once Upon Skates–the play & the characters
Live performance & animation video
Home or school-performance
OUS is a play for a family-home or an in-class school performance. Originally, it was conceived as a puppet play; instead I mounted
shows with kids without puppets in several San Jose schools, with great success. Children and adults loved the play–to watch and to perform.
The animation video on Youtube
Becoming the OUS play-script
Prior to the book-form, the play was a slide-show, which became an animated video. It can be downloaded here on the website & on Youtube. The video helps kids to visualize how to perform the play, and learn the "Apple-song," while the book is the full and the final version of the play. So use the book as the script for the performance!
*The Star-Dance video teaches the dance to more kids like in a class-performance.
Tests
Kids from 7-10 y.o. get engrossed in the play.
A two-year old in a store was crying "Apple, apple," just like Sanya sings in the play to lure the Applewitch outside on the pond. I chimed in with the Applesong!
Play's side-effect: children eat more apples! Doctors recommend it!
Where to order: amazon.com
The book will be available on amazon.com shortly: $14.95, video and the trailer are free to download on this website or on YT under: Vlasta Diamant (+30 other videos)
Share the big news
The book is new to every generation of kids age 7-10 y.o. Sanya, the heroine, models to girls self-confidence and self-reliance. Characters belong to diverse ethnic groups (as illustrations show)–so the book appeals beyond borders and nations; the Applewitch is vain and greedy–laughable, but not evil!
The book's origin and meaning
I wrote the play in 1992-93, when my native country–Yugoslavia, was in turmoil of a terrible war. I took a refuge in a familiar fairy-tale–Snowwhite, and turned it inside out for a different story outcome. The slide show and the audio part were done by 1995. The script in the book is revised, expanded. It includes more characters, "song and dance" numbers & one more act. Published in 2009, it is the final and complete play with an epilogue of ideas and suggestions to kids & parents. The book-script features images of original puppets + performing kids, as well as Vlasta's colorful monoprints. Whether read, watched or performed, OUS delights both kids and adults. Enjoy!