Tales of heroism and adventure, ballads and poems, stories of Christmas and Easter, Bible stories and stories of the lives of the saints are appropriate for human shadow plays because they have great human interest and give opportunity for dramatic interpretation. The following list may be a guide to you in choosing your play: William Tell, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Roland and Oliver, Hiawatha, The Cid, Joseph and His Brethren, The Story of Moses, David and Jonathan, David Before Saul, The Good Samaritan, The Story of Ruth, The Story of Queen Esther, The Story of St. Francis of Assisi, The Nativity, The Christ-child Legend, Where Love Is There God Is. Also, and Christmas carols such as: Good King Wenceslaus, We Three Kings of the Orient Are, Here We Come A Wassailing, and Little Town of Bethlehem. Boys and girls who have originality and a gift for writing will find great pleasure in making their own shadow plays. These can be done either in prose or in verse. They can do this easily, if they keep in mind the requirements—action, dramatic interest, individuality of characters, and a simple, harmonious setting. It is worth trying. [Illustration: [Shadows]] [Illustration: _Scenes from the cut out shadow play, "The Traveling Musicians of Bremen."_ ] [Illustration: [Shadows]] CHAPTER III Producing Cut-out Shadow Plays When you were very young you probably were quite skilful in making shadow rabbits, ducks, and donkeys on the nursery walls. With a friend you may have cut out paper animals and people and fastened them to sticks and then made a shadow play with their shadows on the wall. Your interest in shadows may have led you to stretch a sheet across the upper part of a doorway and cover the lower part with a shawl. Here you stood concealed from your audience while you moved your shadow figures back and forth in a lively fashion as you spoke the lines of a favorite nursery rhyme or improvised a play. The next step was converting the old three-part screen into a shadow booth. [Illustration: _The frame_ (_A_), _upon which is fastened the translucent paper or cloth_ (_B_), _slides in and out of the standard at the grooves C, C._ ] When one wishes to use scenery with cut-out shadows some sort of frame is necessary to hold the screen. Here is a plan for a very simple and inexpensive standard. You can see that you can have any number of screens for this kind of standard, because it allows the screens to be slipped in and out in a moment. The materials required other than the lumber are unbleached muslin or cheap white window shades and black showcard colors, and a few brushes of different sizes. The muslin should be stretched and tacked to the frame. If you use a window shade it will not be necessary to stretch it and it provides an excellent surface on which to paint the scenery.