Traditional Tales on Stage

BEŞİKTAŞ ATATÜRK ANADOLU HIGH SCHOOL

THE LIST OF THE VOLUNTEERS WHO WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PROJECT
(06.01.2016)

1-Zeynep Durak 11/A

2-Arya Erklinoğlu 11/A

3-Gözde Ertürk 11/A

4-Bilinç Hacısalihoğlu 11/A

5-Mithat Yılmaz 11/A

6-Cansu Özpekel 11/ I

7-Ceren Gürel 11/B

8-Umut Yegen 11/F

9-Efsun Erkaya 11/A

10-Ali Murat Tanrıverdi 11/F

11-Pınar Yakıcı 9/F

12-Egem Özzengi 9/F

13-Burcu Akgül 11/E

14-Bilge Nur Doğan 11/E

15-Tuğçe Özek 9/H

16-Büşra Erdoğan 9/H

17-Nihan Sarıoğlu 9/H

18-İrem Koçak 9/H

19-Barış Bingöl

20-Mustafa Samur 9/D

21-Afra Sevil 9/E

22-Ahmet Utkan Bülbül 9/E

23-Önder Dönmez

24-Yağmur Kara 9/F

25-Selin Çoğal 9/C

26-Ezgi Deniz Yıldız 9/C

27-Defne Uluğ 9/C

28-Melis Şelte 9/C

29-Ekin Gökçe 9/C

30-Duygu Yağmur Yaman 9/C

31-Ecem Funda Erikli 9/A

32-Caner Tarhan 9/A

33-Mehlika Nur Demir 9/A

34-Bilge Nur Deniz 9/A

35-Melike Miran 9/A

36-Berk Dinçal 9/G

37-Yiğit Biricik 9/ H

38-Oğuhan Yüce 9/H

39-Halit Avcı 9/H

40-Ömer Faruk Canavar 9/H

41-Ege Çağdaş Aladağ 9/C

42-Yiğit Hanefi 9/C

43-Osman Efe Çetin 9/C

44-Alper Bilir 9/H

45-Şeref Can Malkoç 9/H

46-Halil Doruk Yıldırım 9/H

49-Özge Yalçın 10/B

50-Doruk Karaca 11/G

51-Aybüke Boran 11/I

52-Cemre Mutaf 11/G

53-Gamze Özok 11/G

54-Altınay Kapsız 11/G

55-Burcu Zeynep Kocaoğlu 11/G

56-Sinem Kurt 9/H

57-Zeynep Suat 9/H

58-Ceyda Acar 9/H

59-Betül Elif Uslu 9/H

60-Mina Zeynep Çamoğlu 9/H

61-Sencer Çetinkaya 11/G

62-Merve Ak 11/G

63-Berkin Ceren Koçoğlu

The Tale

It's announced in all classes that we're a part of project called Dramatization of Traditional Tales and talked about the project in detail to a certain extent. Then we gave out questionnaries in which we asked them about the famous traditional tales in our country, their favourite ones and the ones their parents used to tell them maybe as a bedtime story. We also wanted them to ask the same questions to their parents. We got the questionnaries back and we chose top three. Among those three we chose Sahmeran since it already has the script.

The story- traditional version

The Script

The Script of Sahmeran

Modernization of the story

Student samples for the story of the modern version in Turkish

The Tale

Modern Version

Students who have successfully modernized the tale

Cemre Mutaf

Selin Çoğal

Ecem Özzengi

Nur Nihan Sarıoğlu

Mustafa Samur

Gamze Özok

Barış Bingöl

Mehlika Nur Demir

Ege Çağdaş Aladağ

Melis Şelte

Can is a young boy whose father was a famous doctor who dies before he was born and who lives with his mother. Unlike his father, he never has a successful career or get educated since he prefers fun to work.

Can and his friends work in a mine. But they aren’t happy with their job or the money they earn. One day at the mine, they are removing coal while singing a song that curses their fate. During the dig, Can finds a shiny object among the black coals and realises that it’s a diamond. They dig and find more of it. Then, while they are dreaming about how they can become rich without working with the diamond they have found, a giant explosion occurs, and while they are trying to run upwards, the diamonds in their hands spills around. Meanwhile, Can trips and falls down. Afterwards, a piece of coal falls on his feet and he gets stuck. Then, his friends see the amount of diamond in Can’s hand and thinking that trying to save him will be too risky, they take the diamonds and run away. Can faints as the coal hits his head.

Waking up, he finds himself in a beautiful garden. He spots a gorgeous woman mixing up herbs to make medicine. He watches as the woman puts the mixture on the ill person next to him, healing him. Sahmeran’s students spot him and take him to Sahmeran. After she listens to Can’s story, she says she doesn’t trust people herself and therefore she isn’t surprised. She tells him that once she was using healing herbs to help people, but they used it for bad purposes so she just chose to be in this faraway place with her students. She adds that people think she’s dead and now she lives away from people. She feeds and accommodates him for a few days. When Can tells her that he wants to go, that his mother will think he’s dead, Şahmeran tells him that he can’t go anywhere without her permission, and that only she knows the way out.

She tells him that now that Can knows about her and what she does, she can’t let him go back. Can promises not to tell anybody but Sahmeran says that people have betrayed her before. When Can says that he’s not like other people and that she can trust him, she tells him about the betrayal or Berk and İlkay.

Berk works as a history professor at one of the country’s most prestigious universities. He’s offered to be the rector from his university but since he’s after a herb that can cure cancer he declines and starts his journey for science. During the journey he falls sick on he finds Sahmeran. She welcomes him. She learns about the reason of his journey and his illness and heals him with herbs. But when Berk tells her that he has to leave, she tells him that even though she doesn’t want him to go, since he’s seen her science, she says she’ll let him go only on two conditions. First condition is that he won’t tell anyone about her or her science, and second is that when he finds the herb that can cure, he must promise to use it for the good of humanity. Berk promises and continues his journey. On the road he meets İlkay, the daughter of the owner of KFC chains. While he’s telling İlkay about his journey, he slips out Sahmeran’s name. İlkay then tells him about her own journey. İlkay’s father dies before he has the chance to tell her the secret ingredient to the sauce which customers adore. İlkay says that a special herb is used for this sauce and that only Sahmeran knows where it grows. This herb is also an addictive drug. İlkay aims to make customers addicted to the sauce with the help of the herb to make more profit. Berk, who has no idea about this plan, thinks she only wants the herb for the sauce.

When she hears about Sahmeran from Berk, she asks him to take her to Sahmeran by promising that she won’t hurt her, only she wants to learn where the herb grows. She says that if Berk helps her, they will share the money and be really rich. Berk, though he is passionate about science, finds the offer tempting as he runs out of money and agrees to help her as long as Sahmeran isn’t harmed. They find Şehlerkül while she’s again working with the herbs. When she sees Berk, she’s upset about his betrayal but Berk tells her that they are only after the herb. Sahmeran insists on not giving them the herb because she’s aware of the addictive effects of it. After that, İlkay hits her in the head with a piece of wood to make her faint, and locks her in a cage and tells her that they won’t let her leave if she doesn’t tell them where it grows. Sahmeran once again surrenders to human greed and at the end of a long two-day journey with no food or water, she tells them where the herb grows to be set free. Tired, hungry and thirsty Sahmeran leans in Berk’s ear to warn him about not tasting the sauce before leaving.

When Can hears this story he tells her that he’ll never betray her like Berk, but can’t convince her. He continues to live with her but the the thought of his mother thinking he’s dead eats him alive so he gets insistent on telling Sahmeran to let him go. He finally manages to convince her. Before letting him go, Sahmeran tells Can about the end of the story. As soon as İlkay returns, she prepares the sauce with the herb and asks Berk to taste it but he takes Sahmeran’s advice and doesn’t, and when İlkay tastes it, she dies.

Can swears not to betray her trust many times and Sahmeran agrees on letting him go half-heartedly on two conditions. First condition is that he won’t tell anyone about seeing her and the second is that he won’t take off the necklace that she gives him, taking off her own neck. Can immediately aggrees and lets her show the way out.

Can returns home and his mother gets very happy realising he’s alive. They continue living their old lives. Can’s friends have already became rich. When they run into him, they get shocked and apologise. Good hearted Can forgives them.

7 years pass by. In that time, Can doesn’t tell anyone about Sahmeran or takes off the necklace.

But one day, the mayors daughter falls ill. Even though they have visited countless doctors, nobody could find a cure for her illness. As a last chance, they think about going to Can whose father was a famous doctor once upon a time. They promise Can that if he heals her daughter, he’ll live in peace for the rest of his life. Can tells them that unfortunately he’s not a doctor like his father and that he can’t do anything. Just as the mayor was about to leave the place, Can can’t resist the idea of living in wealth for the rest of his life and tells them about the wise Sahmeran and that only she can find a cure with her healing herbs. So they take a long journey to where Sahmeran lives. Sahmeran tells them that there’s only one herb that can cure her, and that she’s out of it. As the father’s last hope dies, he gets mad and kills Sahmeran at the spot. Giving her last breaths, Sahmeran leans in Can’s ear to tell him that the only herb is hidden in his necklace. Can unlocks necklace and makes the girl drink it after he has boiled it. The girl heals and Can becomes the best man of the mayor and lives peacefully forever…

Student samples for the script of the modern version in English

Five finalists students that we chose to write the script

Cemre Mutaf

Nur Nihan Sarıoğlu

Melis Şelte

Ege Çağdaş Aladağ

Mustafa Samur

Dramatization

As usual, we worked with the volunteers. We made it known by all by putting advertisements on the noticeboards in which we stated the dealine and what they were supposed to do. When we got all the names, we held a meeting, handed out the scripts and asked them to work on the character they want to play. We explained them what we expected from them (our evaluation criteria). When they came for the audition, we evaluated their performance on the basis of our criteria.

We asked the ones we liked to come again by working on their weak points and learning a part by heart. When they came, we interviewed them on the basis of the questions we agreed on before as well as evaluating their performance.

Here are the names of the actors and actresses we chose

Mustafa Samur

Nur Nihan Sarıoğlu

Melis Şelte

Cemre Mutaf

Mehlika Nur Demir

İrem Koçak

Doruk Yıldırım

Sencer Çetinkaya

Osman Efe Çetin

Audition

ABOUT OUR PARTNERS

These are the works of students to widespread some
information about our partnerships.

Lesson Plans

A project made by the students about the traditional tales

Live Puppet Show Performance -Hacivat and Karagöz

STUDENTS' SUGGESTIONS FOR HOW TO STAGE CERTAIN SCENES

For the ones who want to work at backstage we handed out the scripts and asked them to write their opinions about how to stage the scenes especially since there are some different and difficult scenes and characters (a well, a garden underground, a desert island, a snake with a woman's head). Below are some examples: