_______________________________________________________________

LEWIS CARROLL

Author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

His real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832- 1898). He was a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He had fun doing Math and he had even more fun telling funny stories and writing funny poems.

Click here to find out more about Lewis Carroll from fans in England.

Click here to find out more about Lewis Carroll from fans in North America.

Here for you to READ OUT LOUD and to ACT OUT is Lewis Carroll’s famous tragical and comical  parody of a Young Warrior who fights a gruesome, but funny pair of Monsters.

_______________________________________________________________

The Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

illustrated by Sir John Tenniel

Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

All mimsy were the borogoves

And the momraths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch.

Beware the Jubjub Bird
And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!”

He  took his vorpal sword in hand,

Longtime the manaxome foe he sought,

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood a while in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the Tulgey Wood

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker snack!

He left it dead,

and with its head,

he went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy

O frabjous day, caloo calay”

They chortled in their joy.

Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves

And the momraths outgrabe.

_______________________________________________________________

THE ROYAL GUARDS and THE SWORD BEARER

___________________________________

Beware the Jabberwock!

as seen on Springfield, Massachusetts Cable TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcpAO0SMAGc

BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK! was first performed at Chestnut Middle School in Springfield, Massachusetts, 1996. Three episodes of a local cable TV show, ACT OUT SPRINGFIELD! showed how the young actors from Chestnut prepared for and then performed their play. The program was produced by the Springfield Cable Endowment and broadcast for many years over the Cable Endowment Channel.

Other versions were created for cable TV in Sheffield, Massachusetts and in the Bronx, NY.

_______________________________________________________________

Here is an acting exercise from the TV show, demonstrating how kids practiced the unusual Lewis Carroll vocabulary words in the poem.

Lewis Carroll Nonsense Words

BRILLIG

JABBERWOCK

GYRE AND GIMBLE

BOROGROVE

MIMSY

WABE

MOMERATH

SLITHY TOVE

FRUMIOUS BANDERSNATCH

TUM TUM TREE

_______________________________________________________________

Now it’s your turn to ACT IT OUT!

Free Instructional Materials

TWO TYPES OF SCRIPTS FOR PRODUCING A PLAY

BUT FIRST

BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD

You must say these words out loud:

“Caloo Calay!”

download/ JABBERWOCKY Readers’ Theater

• Take parts.

• Read out loud

download/ JABBERWOCKY Full Script

• Take parts.

• Act out, scene by scene

______________________________________________________________________________________

See other episodes of ACT OUT on local cable TV.

“Squawking Chickens” scene from The Fisherman and His Wife featuring professional actors from STARRR Players & Co. and young actors at PS 130 in the Bronx, NY.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmT37svRzk