Educational Matinee Series Study Guide 2007-2008

CUMMINS AND SCOULLAR'S

'Che 62ittlc 9!2nitce BY:

RICK CUMMINS AND JOHN SCOULLAR BASED ON THE BOOK BY ANTOINE DE SAINT·ExUPÉRY

DIRECTED BY TOM QUAINTANCE

NOVEMBER 28 - DECEMBER 1 6, 2007

PLAYMAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY

WWW.PLAYMAKERSREP.ORG CB 3235, CENTER FOR DRAMATIC ART

CHAPEL HILL NC 27599·3235 (91 9) 962-7529

JOSEPH HAJ, PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

PlayMakers Repertory Company's Educational Matinee Series is made possible by GlaxoSmithKline, Duke Power and an anonymous foundation.

The Little Prince Study Guide PIAl'MAKERS REPERTORY COMPANY 2007

Theatre Etiquette

PlayMakers actors use the entire theatre space including the aisles and the seated areas; therefore, patrons must remain seated throughout the performance

We request that patrons not eat or drink in the Paul Green Theatre. Please dispose of any gum, candy and any other food or drink items before the performance.

We want you to feel welcome and comfortable. There is no dress code. You should feel free to laugh, applaud, and react naturally.

Please turn off all cell phones, pagers, watches or other electronic devices that make noise (including laptop computers) before the start of the performance. Also, laser pointers are not permitted in the theatre. These devices will be confiscated.

The use of cameras or other recording devices is strictly prohibited in the theatre. Cameras and film will be confiscated.

STUDY GUIDE FOR

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'Che Ë2ittle 12nnœ

This Study Guide is one in a series designed to supplement classroom preparation for attending an Educational Matinee at PlayMakers. The objectives ofthese study guides are to educate audiences about drama not only as literature, but also as theatre; to increase students' appreciation of the plays they read and the productions they see; and to encourage critical thinking by readers and theatergoers.

This Study Guide was designed by Jeffrey Meanza, Director of Education and Outreach, with some assistance by Mark Perry, Production Dramaturg. Ifyou have questions about the Educational Matinee Series or this study guide, please contact Jeffrey Meanza at meanza@email.unc.edu or (919) 962-2491.

Contents

•!• Welcome Letter •!• Theater Etiquette •!• Introduction •!• About PlayMakers •!• Contents •!• Dramaturgy Notes

o Synopsis o About the play o About the playwright o Adapting a Book to the Stage

•!• Discussion Questions

About PlayMakers Repertory Company

Founded in 1975 as a program of the Department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, PlayMakers Repertory Company is a fully professional theatre organization. PlayMakers produces six productions each season in the Paul Green Theatre, a 500-seat facility, and three productions in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theater, a 180-seat facility. Both ofthese theatres are a part of the Center for Dramatic Arts on the UNC campus.

Ail of the sets, costumes and properties (props) you see on stage are constructed by professional craftspeople in the theatre's shops. A resident company of actors appears in many of the productions each season. Ouest actors, directors and designers are hired as needed for individual productions. Overseeing the entire operation are the Producing Artistic Director, General Manager and Production Manager who guide the artistic, administrative and production operations of the theatre.

Rehearsals for each play last five weeks, first in a rehearsal hall, then in the theatre for the final week before performances. During the final week of ''technical rehearsals," the scenic, costume, sound, and lighting elements are incorporated into the production. Three preview performances before an audience end the rehearsal process. Then it is time for opening night! Each production runs for three weeks in the Paul Green Theatre; while one show is running, the next is being prepared in the rehearsal halls and shops.

SYNO PS IS

The Little Prince Study Guide PIA\'MAIŒBS REPERTORY COMPANY 2007

The Little Prince begins as our narrator, the A viator, crashes in the Sahara desert. The crash badly damages his airplane and leaves him with very little food or water. As he is worrying over his predicament, he is approached by the Little Prince, a very serious little blond boy who asks the A viator to draw him a sheep. The A viator obliges, and the two become friends. The Little Prince then begins to tell the A viator his story: that he cornes from a smaII planet that people on Earth call Asteroid B-612. The Little

Prince took great care ofthis planet, preventing any bad seeds from growing and making sure it was never overrun by baobab trees. One day, a mysterious

Rose sprouted on the planet and the Little Prince fell in love with her. But when she became too difficult for him to take care of, and he felt her words to be insincere, he decided that he could not trust her anymore. He decided to leave his world and explore other planets and cure his loneliness.

While joumeying, the Little Prince passes by neighboring asteroids and encounters for the first time the strange, narrow-minded world of grown-ups. On the first six planets the Little Prince visits, he meets the King, the Conceited Man, the Tippler (a drunkard), the Businessman, the Lamplighter, and the Geographer, all of whom live alone and are overly consumed by their chosen occupations. Such strange behavior both amuses and perturbs the Little Prince. He does not understand their need to order people around, to be admired, and to own everything. With the exception of the Lamplighter, whose dogged faithfulness he admires, the Little Prince does not think much of the adults he visits, and he does not learn anything useful. However, he learns from the Geographer that flowers do not last forever, and he begins to miss the Rose he has left behind.

At the Geographer's suggestion, the Little Prince visits Earth, but he lands in the middle of the desert and cannot find any humans. Instead, he meets the Snake who speaks in riddles and hints darkly that her lethal poison can send the Little Prince back to the heavens ifhe so wishes. The Little Prince ignores the offer and continues his explorations, to meet a mysterious Merchant, and to climb the tallest mountain he can find. On the mountain top he confuses the echo ofhis voice for conversation. Eventually, the Little Prince finds a wall of roses, which surprises and depresses him-he had thought that his Rose was the only one ofher kind.

The Prince befriends a Fox, who teaches him that the important things in life are visible only to the heart- that his time away from the Rose makes her more special to him, and that love makes a person responsible for the beings that one loves. The Little Prince realizes that, even though there are many roses, his love for his Rose makes her unique and that he is therefore responsible for her. Despite this revelation, he still feels very lonely because he is so far away from his Rose.

It is now the A viator eighth day in the desert, and at the Prince' s suggestion, they set off to find a well. The water feeds their hearts as muchas their bodies, and the two share a moment ofbliss as the Aviator finally opens his heart and his mind to experience the magic ofhis first sunset. The Little Prince's mind, however, is fixed on retuming to his Rose, and he begins making plans with the Snake to head back to his planet. Walking with the Aviator to meet the Snake, the Little Prince is taken from this world by the Snake and transported to the heavens.

Adapta:! from h!tp·//www sparlmotes com/ljt/ljttlepcinceJS!.llJ!IDW h!m l

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Reflecting on bis tirne with The Little Prince, the A viator is comforted by the stars, in which he now hears the tinkling of bis friend's laughter. Often, however, he grows sad and wonders if the sheep he drew bas eaten the Prince' s Rose. The A viator ends bis story by showing a drawing of the desert landscape and by asking us to stop for a while under the stars ifwe are ever in the area and tolet hirn know immediately if the Little Prince bas retumed.

Pictircd., trom top, Kenneth P. Strong(the Aviator); Lcsloy Shircsand.Jason~(lhc Little Prince and tbc Fox); KcnœthP. Stroogand Lesley Shire:s(tbe Aviatorand the Little Prince)

ABOUT THE PLAY

The Little Prince: Bringing the Invisible into Focus

"Le plus important est invisible"

This secret, shared by the Fox with the Little

Prince, captures in five short words a key insight,

which author Antoine de Saint Exupéry wished to

share with the readers of his whimsical, allegorical

novella, The Little Prince. Literally, "The most

important is invisible" or, as translated by Katherine

Woods, "Whatever is essential is invisible to the

eye." The book itselfwas invisible to the eye as 1

went searching for it through the "Literature" section

of a local super bookstore until an employee directed

me to the Children's section. Hm, 1guess1 hadn't

thought of it as a children' s book, having encountered

it in a high school French class (in French, when, 1

must say, given the haze of unmastered verb tenses

and of adolescence in general, the value of the book

seemed "invisible.") But now, pickup the book and

you'll see, it exhibits all the signs ofbeing a

children's book: the modest size, the watercolor

pictures, the simple Ianguage, the fact that the

narrator addresses his audience as children ... It

seems a closed case to a supersized book dealer with

tens of thousands of titles to categorize, as closed a

case as it might seem to a businessman on an asteroid

consumed with counting the stars ofhis ethereal

profits. A student remarked the other day that she

read The Little Prince when she was a child and got

one thing, then she read it again recently and saw it

on an entirely different level. Maybe this is the virtue

of the best of children's literature. lt bas a way of

capturing, in simple narrative, essential secrets of the

world, which we feel we can better appreciate on this

side of the grownup experience.

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Still, there is something unsettling about a

children's book in which the author, while keeping

his narration warm and personable, refuses to

discover any character that is not lonely­

emotionally isolated on his own planet, so to speak­

nor any relationship that is not fated to separation. A

children's book this may be, but it is one for an

existentialist generation - in particular, the World

War generation that, teetering on the brink of

destruction, looked up and saw that what was

assailing them had been brought about by their own

actions and their own failures to act.

Unlike some ofhis contemporaries who also

confronted humanity's growing sense ofalienation

(e.g., Samuel Beckett), Antoine de Saint Exupéry

seems unwilling to yield to cynicism. Instead, his

long-suffering characters appear to intuitively

understand that at the end of the long night journey of

the soul, they shall encounter daybreak, that

upwelling of the heart when one discovers the

mystery of attainment hidden within.

Perhaps, the dilemma over whether this is a

children's book or a grown-up book may be resolved

by considering the dedication made by our author. He

dedicates the book to his best friend, Leon W erth, but

then, after a lengthy apology to children for

dedicating the book to a grown-up, be makes the

clarifying gesture, "To Leon Werth, when he was a

little boy." It's a clever little paradox, in

characteristic style, and shows an unconcern for

linear time: it is dedicated to the child within the

man. If we extrapolate, this book is addressed to the

'child self in ail of us, ofwhatever age. Once again,

what is essential to the author is what is invisible to

the eye.

Like so much great art, there is something

intimately autobiographical about The Little Prince.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry was a pilot, and at one

point in his life, he flew routinely over the Sahara

desert. He did, in fact, once crash in the desert and

had to walk for days to get help. Also, he came from

the French nobility, at a time when nobility was no

great advantage. So one may find in him both our

central characters, the grownup A viator and the Little

Prince who has lost his kingdom. The author' s death

too seems foreshadowed by his tale. In 1944, a year

after The Little Prince was published, he insisted on

flying a wartime reconnaissance mission, despite

injuries suffered in an earlier crash. Apparently, he

encountered engine failure and descended this time

not into the blinding desert, but into the

Mediterranean blue.

What he left behind, in addition to his other

works, was this pint-sized magnum opus, this

heartfelt allegory that blushes at too glib a reading of

its symbols. Be warned, you may mistake a

dangerous snake for a hat. Here is a complex system

as perceived through the eyes of the child self. This is

a world where a child puts away his love for drawing

and it causes the breakdown ofhis plane thirty years

later. This is a world where being stranded in the

desert is not as grave a crisis as a child crying over a

flower on an asteroid in danger ofbeing eaten by a

sheep that exists only because it was drawn on a

piece of paper. This is a world where sunsets bring

music, where wells sing, a world where, to borrow an

old Persian proverb, one must "look not for water,

but find thirst, and water from the very ground will

burst."

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Such a formula may never satisfy the grown­

ups, but then Antoine de Saint Exupéry knew this. He

knew the grown-up sensibility- so concemed with

proof, with control, with possession-wouldn't

accept his story, and so he dressed it up as a

children's book and trusted that the right readers, of

whatever age, would find it. Considering the millions

of devoted readers of The Little Prince around the

world, his trust has served him well.

This PlayMakers production began with the

stage adaptation of Rick Cummins and John Scoullar,

and now director Tom Quaintance, the acting

company, and the rest of the creative team have taken

this text and made the leap for Asteroid B-612. For

we regard this story as a treasure, a well in the desert,

and we hope, before the play is through, you feel

'tamed' by your investment oftime and attention and

that you discover that upwelling of the heart that is

the clearest proof of the truth: "Le plus important est

invisible."

-Mark Perry

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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French aviator and writer, real life hero who looked at adventure and danger with

poet's eyes - sometimes from the viewpoint of a child. Saint-Exupéry's most famous

work is The Little Prince (1943), which he also illustrated. It has become one of the

classics of children's literature of the 20th century. During World War II Saint­

Exupéry served as a pilot. He was shot down on a mission over France in 1944.

"Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." (from The Little Prince)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was bom in Lyons into an old family of provincial nobility. His father was

an insurance company executive, who died ofa stroke in 1904. His artistically talented widow, Marie de

(Fonscolombe) Exupéry (1875-1972), moved with her children to Le Mans in 1909. At the castle ofSaint­

Maurice-de-Rémens, Saint-Exupéry spent his childhood years surrounded by sisters, aunts, cousins, nurses,

and friiuleins. He was educated at Jesuit schools in Montgré and Le Mans, and in Switzerland at a Catholic

boarding school (1915-1917), run by the Marianist Fathers in Fribourg. After failing his final examination at a

university preparatory school, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts to study architecture.

The turning point in Saint-Exupéry's life came in 192 l when he started his military service in the 2ND

Regiment of Chasseurs, and was sent to Strasbourg for training as a pilot. On July 9, 1921, he made his first

flight alone in a Sopwith F-CTEE. Next year Saint-Exupéry obtained his pilot's license, and was offered a

transfer to the air force. However, when his fiancée's family objected, he settled in Paris where he took an

office job and started to write. The following years were unlucky. His engagement with Louise de Vilmorin

broke off, and he had no success in his work and business - he had severaljobs, including that ofbookkeeper

and automobile salesman. Saint-Exupéry's first tale, 'L'A viateur' was published in 1926 in the literary

magazine Le Navire d'argent. Saint-Exupéry then found his true calling in flying the mail for the commercial

airline company Aéropostale. He flew the mail over North Africa for three years, escaping death several times.

In 1928 he became the director of the remote Cap Juby airfield in Rio de Oro, Sahara. His bouse was a wooden

shack and he slept on a thin straw mattress. "1 have never loved my bouse more than when 1 lived in the

desert," he recalled.

In this isolation Saint-Exupéry leamed to love the desert, and used its harsh beauty as the background

for The Little Prince and The Wisdom of the Sands (1948). During these years Saint-Exupéry wrote his first

nove!, Southern Mail (1929), which celebrated the courage of the early pilots, flying at the limits ofsafety, to

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speed on the mail and win a commercial advantage over rail and steamship rivais. Another story line in the

work depicted the author's failed love affair with the novelist Louise de Vilmorin.

"Over and done with. Thirty thousand letters corne safely through. The airline company kept drilling it into you: the precious mail, more precious than life itself. Enough to keep thirty thousand lovers going ... Lovers, be patient! In the sinking fire of sunset here we corne. Behind Bernis the clouds are thick, churned by the whirlwind in its mountain bowl. Before him lies a land decked out in sunlight, the tender muslin of the meadows, the rich tweed of the woods, the ruffied veil of the sea." (from Night Flight)

In 1929 Saint-Exupéry moved to South America, where he was appointed director of the Aeroposta

Argentina Company.

Saint-Exupéry flew post through the Andes. This experience gave the basis for his second nove!, Night

Flight, which became an international bestseller, won the Prix Femina, and was adapted for screen in 1933,

starring Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore. In the story Rivière, the hard-bitten airport chief, has Jeft behind

ail thoughts of retirement and sees the work of flying the mail as his fate. "We don't ask to be etemal', he

thought. 'What we ask is not to see acts and objects abruptly Jose their meaning. The void surrounding us then

suddenly yawns on every side." (from Night Flight)

Saint-Exupéry married in 1931 Consuelo G6mez Carillo, a widow, whose other literary friends

included Maurice Maeterlinck and Gabriele D'Annunzio. "He wasn't like other people," she wrote later in

Mémoires de la rose, "but like a child or an ange! who has fallen down from the sky." The marriage was

stormy. Consuelo was jealous for good reasons and felt neglected when ber husband did not spend much time

at home. He also had affairs with other women.

After the air mail business in Argentina was closed down, Saint-Exupéry started to fly post between

Casablanca and Port-Étienne and then he served as a test pilot for Air France and other airline companies. He

wrote for Paris-Soir, covered the May Day events in Moscow in 1936, and wrote a series of articles on the

Spanish Civil War. Saint-Exupéry lived a traveling, adventurous life: he persuaded Air France to Jet him fly a

Caudron Simoun (F-ANRY), and had an aviation accident in 1935 in North Africa. He walked in the desert for

days before being saved by a caravan. In 1937, he bought another Caudron Simoun, and was severely injured

in Guatemala in a plane crash.

Encouraged by his friend André Gide, during bis convalescence Saint-Exupéry wrote a book about the

pilot's profession. Wind, Sand and Stars, which appeared in 1939, won the French Academy's 1939 Grand Prix

du Roman and the National Book Award in the United States. The director Jean Renoir wanted to shoot the

film and had conversations with the author, mostly about literary subjects which he recorded. At that time

Renoir worked in Hollywood where everyone shot on sets. Renoir's idea was to make the film at the locations

described in the text. The book had been successful in the U.S., but nobody wanted to produce its film version.

After the fall of France in World War Il, Saint-Exupéry joined the army and made several daring

flights. Although he was considered unable to fly military planes because of bis several injures, he was

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awarded the Croix de Guerre. ln June he went to live with bis sister in the Unoccupied Zone of France, and

then he escaped to the United States. When the Vichy régime appointed him to its National Council, he

protested at this "untimely appointment." Saint-Exupéry was criticized by bis countrymen for not supporting

de Gaulle's Free France forces in London. Flight to A"as (1942), published in New Y orle, depicts bis hopeless

flight over the enemy lines when France was already beaten. The book was banned in France by the German

authorities. ln 1943, he rejoined the French air force in North Africa. Also in Algiers he continued bis lifelong

habit of writing in the air. After a bad landing bis commanding officer decided that he was too old to go on

flying, but after a pause he was allowed to rejoin bis unit. In 1943 Saint-Exupéry published bis best-known

work, The Little Prince (1943), a children's fable for adults, wbich has been translated into over 150 languages.

It has been claimed that The Little Prince is the best-selling book after the Bible and Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

Saint-Exupéry devoted the book to bis friend Léon Werth. Its narrator is a pilot who bas crash-landed in a

desert. He meets a boy, who tums out to be a prince from another planet. The prince tells about bis adventures

on Earth and about bis precious rose from bis planet. He is disappointed when he discovers that roses are

common on Earth. A desert fox convinces him that the prince should love bis own rare rose and finding thus

meaning to bis life, the prince retums back home. The rare rose is usually interpreted as Consuelo.

On July 31, 1944 Saint-Exupéry took off from an airstrip in Sardinia on a flight over southem France.

His plane disappeared - he was shot down over the Mediterranean, or

perhaps there was an accident, or it was suicide. Saint-Exupéry had felt

isolated and alone in bis squadron, and was pessimistic about the

future. On one mission he had trouble with bis oxygen mask and nearly

passed out. Saint-Exupéry left bebind the unfinished manuscript of La

Citadelle (Wisdom of the Sands) and some notebooks wbich were

published posthumously. "Freedom and constraint are two aspects of

the same necessity, wbich is to be what one is and no other." (from La Citadelle, 1948) The book reflects Saint­

Exupéry's increasing interest in politics, and bis later ideals. The author's last flight inspired Hugo Pratt's

comics Saint-Exupéry (1996). In 1998, a fisherman found Saint-Exupéry's bracelet from the sea, 150

kilometers west from Marseilles. His and Conzuela Gomez Castillo's name were recognized from it. However,

later news revealed, that the bracelet was probably a forgery. Eventually Saint-Exupéry plane, Lockheed

Lightning P-38, was found in May 2000.

Liukkonen, Petri. Books and WritetS. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/exupery.htm

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ADAPTING A BOOK TO THE STAGE BY MARK PERRY

•

' Avec de'"'" paT 1 oute~t.

When we read a good book, it seems to corne al ive in our

imagination. We envision it almost like a movie in our head. It's

only natural then to want to see it acted out or to act it out

ourselves. Wouldn't it be kind of fun, we might think while

reading The Little Prince, to play out the dialogue between the

sad Little Prince and the suspicious Fox? We imagine how

moving it would be when the A viator carries the exhausted Little

Prince across the desert to discover the singing well. What might

it look like, we wonder, when the Little Prince accompanies the

flock of migrating birds as they journey through space? Such

questions begin to spring from the deepening curiosity that impels us to dramatize a favorite book.

And yet, why is it that so many of us have the experience of being disappointed when these

books are adapted either to film or to the stage? Even the ones that are done "faithfully"- that is, the

ones that include the most important features of the book- seem to fall flat or wander when it cornes

to storytelling. Why is it so hard to repeat that joyful experience we originally had of reading and of

creating a world merely with our imagination?

To begin to answer a question like this, we must consider the differences between the medium

ofwritten fiction and that of drama. In one sense, fiction is freer. The writer can introduce as many

characters and settings as he or she wants, jumping from a conversation to one character's inner

thoughts about that conversation, then flashing back to a memory from that character's childhood,

only then to jump inside another character's thoughts. In drama, we mainly have what people say and

some of what they do, and we must limit the number of settings and interactions. This is not to say

that drama can 't get the same content across, just that it must be done mainly through what the

characters say or don't say, what they do or fail to do.

In the theatre world, we often corne back to the refrain that "showing" is better than ''telling,"

"enacting" better than "indicating." An example from The Little Prince will serve us well at this

point. In the book, the author speaks of the Flower and the Little Prince, saying, "She had soon begun

tormenting him with her rather touchy vanity." Now it's possible to simply have the Aviator narrate

that bit to the audience and then move on, but Rick Cummins and John Scoullar decided, in their

1990s stage adaptation, to dramatize it thus:

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LITTLE PRINCE starts digging up weeds at a distance from her. ROSE watches with growing impatience. Final/y she tries to tempt him away with musical refrains.

ROSE (a cappella). LA-LA-LA-LA- (LITTLE PRINCE smiles but continues working. She looks aroundfor distraction and suddenly spies a caterpillar on her /eaf) Eek!

LITTLE PRINCE. What it it?

ROSE. lt's a monster crawling on me. (She holds out her leaf to show him.)

LITTLE PRINCE. Oh. lt's just a caterpillar. They're really very marvelous creatures. One day it will turn into a beautiful butterfly. But if it upsets you, I'll take it away .. .injust a moment.

ROSE (waits impatient/y trying to think of another way to get his attention. She clears her throat. He looks up). 1 seem to be very dry. Do you think 1 might have a drink?

LITTLE PRINCE. Certainly. As soon as 1 get this last little baobab. (She is annoyed. She beings to cough lightly at first, then more vociferously. He rushes to her side.) What is it?

ROSE (coughing dramatical/y. Hoarse/y). Water ...

LITTLE PRINCE (rushes to water her). Are you ail right?

ROSE. Much better now. Thank you. (J'hey smile. LITTLE PRINCE HEADS BACK TO WORK.) But, 1 am feeling a bit of a chill ...

There is another major consideration in adapting a book to the stage and that is how to shape

the plot. This is a tricky area that really cornes down to understanding the difference between the way

a reader engages with written material and the way an audience engages with staged material. Here

again, drama is more constrained. When we pick up a book, we can choose when to put it down, but

when we watch a play, we're part of a captive audience. Everyone here has taken time out of their

lives to participate in this event of communal storytelling. There is therefore a need for simple, direct

focus on a story that corresponds in scope with the average audience member's span of attention for a

single sitting. The occasion demands we get to the point pretty fast, whereas in fiction, we don 't

necessarily expect to be done within a few days, much Jess a few hours. There is more space for

exploration, for divergence.

In a play, the audience probably needs to be hooked in to the story within ten minutes or so.

We want to understand the crisis the characters are facing soon thereafter and we then want to watch

as the characters respond to that crisis, trying to reassert balance in their world, and yet, coming up

against obstacles that test the nature oftheir resolve, oftheir "character." We want then a high

emotional point, a climax, where we know a looming confrontation can no longer be delayed and

from which the characters emerge or don't, anyway, never to be the same again. lt doesn't matter

whether we're laughing ail the way, holding back tears, or gripping onto our arm rests- the shape of

the dramatic event is deeply embedded in the minds of the modem audience. A serious caveat goes

out to those who would, purposefully or not, defy this expectation.

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To constrain the sprawl of a novel, even a thin novella, to the discipline of dramatic

storytelling is a considerable challenge, yet it is one that time and again artists undertake with high

hopes. After ail, we read too and sometimes the images corne too powerfully, the characters'

interactions crackle too loudly for us to allow this story to remain an experience of individual

imagination. And ifwe concentrate on revealing the heart ofthat story, ifwe call on the imagination

and skill of our colleagues, if the stars align just so, then the story experience becomes magnified,

magic fills the room, friend and stranger are joined in a communion that signais the hallmark of the

theatrical event.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

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1. One of the main themes of The Little Prince is "Whatever is essential is invisible to the eye." Several examples ofthis are given in the story--do you remember what they are? Can you think of some examples of this principle in your own life?

2. Stories generally begin with a crisis that requires a response from the characters. What do you think the major crisis is for the A viator? Is he more concerned with the plane crash or with the mysterious appearance of a little boy in the middle of the desert? How does the fact that he gave up on his childhood drawing play into the story? Are these seemingly separate incidents in any way related?

After the show: 3. How would you describe the drawings in the book? How did the costume and set design compare to these? In what cases did they seem derived straight from the book? In what cases did they veer significantly? What do you think the reason was for this divergence? Did it seem a necessary step in adapting the book to the stage? Did it feel like a director or designer's personal concept? Were any choices made in an attempt to update an older story to modern sensibilities?

4. What role does gender play in the story? How many male roles are there compared to female roles? Why do you think that is? In this production, women play many of the male roles: what effect, if any, do you think that has?