Dramaturgy Guest Post: From Grimm to the Woods

This post was originally published on The 4th Wall, the dramaturgy blog of the BYU Theatre and Media Arts Department. We at FTTV partnered with the cast, director, and dramaturgy team of BYU’s production of Into The Woods to host an exciting event on November 8th that dove into context, meaning, and stage/screen adaptations of fairy tales. Prepare for the production or get a taste of what you missed at the event here. From Grimm to The Woods by Amelia Johnson, Dramaturg The inspiration for Into …

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Dramaturgy Guest Post: Welcome Into The Woods

This post was originally published on The 4th Wall, the dramaturgy blog of the BYU Theatre and Media Arts Department. We at FTTV have partnered with the cast, director, and dramaturgy team of BYU’s production of Into The Woods to host an exciting event on November 8th that dives deep into context, meaning, and stage/screen adaptations of fairy tales. Prepare for the event by reading about the musical and the production here and in the weeks to come. Welcome Into the …

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Setting the Stage: Into the Woods Preparation Event

The Fairy Tale research group is teaming up with BYU Theatre and the cast of their Into the Woods production for an event that meshes fairy tale studies and performance! Join us for a fun event that mixes cast performances, games and trivia, talk-back discussions with cast members, and presentations on context and fairy tale media. This event is for anyone intending on attending a performance of Into the Woods during their November 18 – December 9th run who wants …

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From the Page to the Screen: Why We Study Fairy Tales on Television

Just as Scheherazade spun tales for the king that kept his interest for 1001 nights, so do the shows we watch spin tales that entrance and delight us until we’ve binge-watched our way through an entire series. From the oldest listed fairy tale based television program in our database, a Disney Animated Short on Cinderella that was released in 1922, to Toyota’s latest C-HR ad, also based on Cinderella, TV audiences have been treated to a wide variety of shows, …

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OUAT Premiere Screening — Event Recap

Once Upon A Time. At the end of a six-season run with a well-established finale, on the brink of a new curse to reset season 7, we meet as viewers, as scholars, as audience members and fairy tale enthusiasts, to discuss this show’s past, present, and future. Is Once Upon A Time a high-profile breakthrough for the widespread audience appeal of fairy tales for all ages, moving them out of the realm of children’s media? Is it a harebrained concept that uses …

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Once Upon A Time Event: October 13th!

The BYU Fairy Tales & Television Group is having an event and we would like you all to join us! As you read about in Erica’s post, season 7 of Once Upon A Time is going to look a little different. After the two-part, tied-in-a-bow season 6 finale titled “The Final Battle,” which ended with a minute-long montage of all the characters smiling fondly at each other, which itself came after an episode with a WEDDING which also happened to be …

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Henry Mills, Child in Distress

Written by Erica Smith, one of our new team members! The traditional fairy tales which Once Upon A Time adapts often cast women in the role of damsel-in-distress. Since Once Upon A Time is structured around empowering the adult woman, Henry, a male child, steps in whenever the story calls for a “damsel” character. Targeted at older viewers, the show’s core cast is built mostly of adults in their thirties. Snow White and Belle (Beauty), vaguely youthful in storybooks and …

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The Brothers Winchester: Supernatural as a Modern American Fairy Tale Collection

The final guest post from Dr. Rudy’s 394r Applied English class is from Shana Pickett. We hope you enjoy this one and the others that preceded it! Mysterious murders, man-eating monsters, and magic spells. Damsels in distress, demons, and dashing dudes. It’s a guns-blazing, hair-raising, monster-slaying good time. What’s not to love about CW’s Supernatural? It’s an immensely popular show that started in 2005 and is currently in it’s 12th season, and going strong, still consistently drawing 2 million US …

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The Fairy Tale Inspired Show You Should Be Watching

Sarah Thompson brings us the guest post this week from the Winter 2017 Applied English class. Enjoy! The CW’s critical darling, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, was recently renewed for a third season despite being the least viewed network television show two years in a row. The program follows a tradition of fairy tale-esque musical programs, like Once Upon A Tune and Galavant. But what makes the show so loved by critics and the few who watch it religiously (as opposed to Galavant, whose …

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The ‘Why’ of Fairy Tales and Animation

Nearly half of the data points in our FTTV database come from animated shows or specials, including the oldest entries in our database, the 1922 animated short “Cinderella” (video) and “Three Little Pigs” from 1933 (video). This led me to a question. What is it about fairy tales that lends them so well to animation? Furthermore, what is it about animation that makes it such a great medium for telling fairy tale stories? As Paul Wells states in Animation: Genre …

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