Our homeschool co-op had an event this year called Living Wax Museum! All the high schoolers that are in speech class were required to do one and some of the other middle school and elementary kids signed up as well. They have done this event before but the last time was quite a few years ago. It was our family’s first experience of this kind of thing!
You may have heard of it done before or you can figure out what it is from the name but each kid picks someone from history. Then for single people you have to give a 1-2 minute speech about them, for groups it had to be 2-4 minutes long. You also dress up as the character and remain in your pose until someone “activates” you. For some people that some sort of a button, I made a button out of an empty duct tape roll and a foam sponge type thing that I glued on the top. Other people had you do something to active them (For Ronald Regan you had to eat a jelly bean, for Lillian Leitzel, a circus performer, you had to walk along a piece of string or “tight rope” to activate her!). Then most versions of this event have you do an information board to put behind you and some people did do that but it wasn’t required for ours.
I chose to do St. Joan of Arc! I had been having an attraction to her for some time and I learned a ton about her through this experience. We also watched the super long movie about her on Formed a few weeks before which was neat!
My siblings and our friend did Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea. They rocked it! They were so funny and my brother and his friend were super into it and playing off of each other. They had a bunch of cool items and that really neat map and their costumes were awesome! My sister did amazing and she brought her baby doll and got him looking the part as well
The night was so fun!
I loved all the costumes!! Everyone looked so sharp!
It looked like they had little sheets for the people coming to the event with all the different people from history, I didn’t get a look at it but I’m not sure if they had a map of where we all were too. It was cool because they assigned us to all these different areas around the church that we have our co-op at, and had a sheet of paper saying who we were are the years we in. I was down a hallway and in a room, I had the whole room by myself. Some people were spread around larger areas.
There were several stages of the writing process and it was a challenge for me.
I did a lot of looking online and trying to figure out what actually happened. My mom helped me and was saying how important it was for it to be short and engaging.
The people in speech class had to give our Wax Museum speeches in class a couple weeks before the event. It was tricky to write and other people had a hard time with this too, to get it condensed and interesting. A lot of people’s was long and my mom, at a certain point, really wanted it to be short because we would have to be saying this many times!
Not only should it be short but it should be engaging too. The people watching don’t need to know every life detail. They aren’t going to remember all the dates, and when I’m talking to the little kids they don’t need to be hearing about every part of her story- which I struggled with. There were lots of things I wanted to keep in, certain facts and details but also certain parts of her mission. I was able to take out a lot and simplify it.
The whole time and especially at the end I was getting caught up in the details, and was worried about whether certain things were true or not, looking through different things online to find the truth.
We changed a lot on things I wasn’t sure about, into being vague and simple. I didn’t want to take out or make vague certain things but some of it we did. It was nice to get it shorter and some of it was freeing to not worry about. We took out a lot by the end!
My mom and I made a lot of progress on it and I was not super easy to work with a lot of times. There were still things I was holding onto and not sure about that day even. I had started memorizing it before then but not as much as I should have. Once I got those last things figured out and the script done that day I was free to memorize it like that and made a couple little adjustments later too. So it came down to the last minute.
I should have practiced it more. For the night of the event…
The first one of the night was our friend’s parents who were super sweet and that one was a hot mess. I stopped part way at least 3 times, stumbled on my words and had pauses and stuff. Next I did it for my mom and she filmed me, and I got better.
I’d say I did it around 20 times total maybe? There were still some times that I messed up and I wish I would have had it more stuck into my brain because at times I really had to think about what section came next and that showed to the audience sometimes. At one point I skipped the second line from the start and added it in after I said the next part and a few other smaller instances like that. But I did it smoothly and hopefully it wasn’t weird.
I’m worried that one time I may have said a section twice or something like that- I wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying but I don’t think I did. 😅
Sometimes I went back to old words or lines that we had since changed. At times I didn’t say for the part about Orleans “and inspired them” which was a big part of it. I may not have emphasized that enough in the script as it was, so it probably wasn’t great to leave it out completely. I also said “…God eventually asked me to save” or “help save France in the war,” which was maybe not true. I had another thing like that and various other mess ups. I knew I was saying the wrong lines or saying things that might not have been true at times but I didn’t really care.
But!
Overall it was a really good experience! I had fun and enjoyed it! So many people were super sweet. It was nice for the people who were looking at me the entire time and seemed to be listening and genuinely interested. Because I have a hard time connecting with people otherwise, I loved when I it felt like I made a connection with people who were watching.
I didn’t get to see many people’s that night but I heard almost everyone’s at that class. My mom heard them then too and she said she thinks a lot of people shortened theirs. I should have walked around a bit more though and seen everyone’s set ups and costumes and heard a few more. I don’t think I would have wanted to hear too many though. 🥲 I zoned out for parts of the ones I saw which is probably bad! I loved when people were interested and looking at me- and for other people I kinda faked it at times, some of which for the wrong reasons.
The picture above shows the whole set up I had. One of the high schoolers is a fencer and he had some different knight costume things, including the robe I wore, the sword, the chain mail head piece and the helmet. You can see the activate button I made and the banner I made completely the day of the event- some of which was like a half hour before we left and I traced the pen in marker while we were there! But I’m glad I was able to to make that. My family was really helpful in doing other things for me before we left! We also brought my St. Joan of Arc statue that my Grandma so generously gave me for Christmas!
Below are some more pictures and then the speech script!
Wax Museum St. Joan of Arc Speech Script
Hello! I’m St. Joan of Arc. I didn’t live very long but I accomplished a lot in the years I had. I lived in the midst of the Hundred Year War which actually lasted over a hundred years between France and England. I was born in 1412 in the small village of Domrémy, France. Our family were peasants and I was very religious and loved God.
Around age 13 I started receiving voices from God through angels and saints. Even though I was just a peasant girl, eventually God asked me to help France in the war.
I helped the French defeat the English at several battles, helped restore support in Charles VII and boasted the moral inspiring the French army.
When we were able to travel to the city where Charles was, I went with a group of men, dressed as a male solider and cut my hair short, as to not be noticed traveling through enemy territory. I met with Charles and I won his trust.
He gave me the army to go to Orleans, a city that had been under attack by the English for over half a year. We gave French greatly needed supplies and reinforcements and inspired them. Within nine days, the battle was won.
This victory was the turning point for the French in the overall Hundred Year’s War. Charles was crowned king, which was part of my mission.
Eventually I was imprisoned, put on trial and ultimately being accused of heresy led to my death – being publicly burned at the stake at the age of 19.
God was with me the whole time. People often quote me about facing big fears, for I was known to have said, “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? For the ones I saw, I liked seeing people’s costumes! There were some pretty good ones! Originally I also liked seeing everyone sign up and who they were going to be.
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I should have gotten my script to a better point sooner. And I should have made a better effort to memorize and practice it. Like I said above, I wish it would have been more engrained in my brain.
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? I enjoyed learning about St. Joan of Arc through the process! Even though I was getting into the nitty gritty details by the end. I also loved seeing how well my brother did, and his friend and my sister. He (and both of them as well) did a great job preparing and memorizing his lines and he did a really great job in the performance! I think my brother and his friend will be quite the duo as they get older doing different acting stuff!
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’d like to learn more about some of these people from history that kids portrayed! I didn’t get to see many that night but the ones I saw were Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea, the Wright brothers, Henry and Clara Jane Ford and Lillian Leitzel. But I did get to see almost everyone’s in speech class a couple weeks before. I’d like to learn more about some of these people and maybe I could do a few posts on them!