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The living wax museum project: script, costume and staging

8 min read

In a living wax museum, each student dresses as a historical figure and stands frozen until a visitor presses a paper button. Then the figure comes to life and gives a 60 to 90 second speech in the first person: who they are, the hard thing they faced, what they achieved, and one fact visitors will remember. That is about 150 to 200 words. Below are a template, a full Marie Curie example and tips on costume and poster.

How a living wax museum works

The class sets up its figures around a hall, library or classroom, each with a small poster and a paper button on the table or on the back of a hand. Visitors (parents, other classes) walk round. When someone presses a button, that figure unfreezes, delivers a short speech in character, then freezes again until the next press. Events usually run 45 to 90 minutes, so each student gives the speech fifteen or twenty times.

That repetition is the point. The speech has to be short, clear, and easy to say from memory. A visitor stays for about a minute, so you get one chance to make them remember your figure.

Choosing a figure that works in 90 seconds

Choose someone with a clear story: an obstacle, a turning point and an achievement you can name in one sentence. A recognisable costume helps visitors find you, and a figure who wrote things down lets you include a real quotation.

Check early that two classmates have not picked the same person. If they have, one of you can play the figure at a different moment of their life.

The 60 to 90 second script template

People speak at roughly 130 to 150 words a minute when they are calm. Aim for 150 to 200 words. Fill in the template, then cut every sentence that is not a fact or a feeling.

  1. Name and greeting (1 sentence): I am ____. I was born in ____ in ____.
  2. Where I came from (1 to 2 sentences): one detail about childhood or family that matters later.
  3. The problem (2 sentences): what stood in my way, with a date.
  4. What I did (3 to 4 sentences): the achievement, with numbers, names and places.
  5. The cost or the struggle (1 sentence): what it took, or what went wrong.
  6. A real quotation or a key fact (1 sentence): copied exactly from a source you can cite.
  7. The hook to finish (1 sentence): a question for the visitor, or what you want them to remember.

Full worked example: a Marie Curie wax museum speech

This is a script written for a student to perform, about 190 words, so roughly 80 seconds. It is not a quotation from Curie: it is the student speaking as her, with every fact checkable.

“Hello. I am Marie Curie. I was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867, when Russia ruled my country and the university there would not take women. So I studied in secret, saved for years, and at twenty-four I went to Paris to study physics at the Sorbonne. There I met Pierre Curie. We married in 1895 and worked side by side. I wanted to know why uranium gives off rays. I measured those rays in mineral after mineral, and in 1898 Pierre and I announced two new elements. I named the first polonium, after Poland. The second we called radium. To prove it was real, we boiled and stirred tonnes of ore in a leaking shed, and in 1902 I held one tenth of a gram of radium chloride. In 1903 I shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1911 I won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on my own, the first person to win two. In the Great War I drove X-ray cars to the front so surgeons could find bullets. The rays I studied harmed my health in the end. Ask my poster why I never patented radium.”
Student script for a wax museum, written for this guide from Curie's autobiographical notes (1923) and the Nobel Prize records

Notice what it does: dates in every second sentence, one number a visitor will repeat (two Nobel Prizes), a human detail (the leaking shed), honesty about the cost, and a closing line that sends the visitor to the poster.

For the poster, add one sourced sentence in her own words, such as this one from her 1921 lecture in the United States:

“But we must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals.”
Marie Curie, The Discovery of Radium, lecture at Vassar College, 14 May 1921

A second example in outline: Frederick Douglass

  • Name: I am Frederick Douglass. I was born enslaved in Talbot County, Maryland, around 1818. I never knew my birthday.
  • Problem: reading was forbidden to me. I learned anyway, from white boys in the streets of Baltimore, trading bread for lessons.
  • Action: in September 1838 I escaped north, dressed as a sailor. In 1845 I published the story of my life with real names, which put me in danger.
  • Achievement: I spoke across America, Britain and Ireland, started my own newspaper, The North Star, and met President Lincoln at the White House in 1863.
  • Quotation for the poster, from chapter 10 of his Narrative (1845): “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”
  • Hook: Ask me what the Fourth of July meant to me.

The button: staging and the freeze

The button is usually a red paper circle about 8 centimetres across, taped to the table or a stand. Some schools put a sticker on the back of the student's hand instead. A small card says Press the button to bring me to life.

  • Pick a freeze pose you can hold for two minutes: seated, or standing with your weight on both feet and a prop in your hands.
  • Blinking is allowed. Locking your knees is not: people faint that way.
  • When pressed, take one breath, look at the visitor, and start. When you finish, return to exactly the same pose.
  • If two visitors press at once, finish the speech for both. Do not restart halfway.
  • Keep water under the table and take a break every 20 minutes if your teacher allows it.

Costume and props that read from across a room

One strong item beats a full costume. Choose the thing visitors will recognise from three metres away.

FigureCostumeProp
Marie CuriePlain long dark dress, hair pinned upGlass bottles or test tubes, a lab notebook
Abraham LincolnBlack coat, tall black hat, beardA printed copy of the Gettysburg Address (1863)
Frederick DouglassDark suit, waistcoat, white shirtA mock front page of The North Star
Ada Lovelace1840s gown or shawlA drawing of Babbage's Analytical Engine
Elizabeth IRuff collar, pearlsA paper map of 1588 showing the Armada
Galileo GalileiLong dark robe, beardA cardboard telescope

Show respect for the person you play. Never darken your skin or use a mock accent or invented dialect to portray someone of another race or country. Your words, your facts and your props do the work. For Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth in particular, speak in your own clear voice.

The poster: what to put on it

  • Name, dates and places of birth and death, in large letters.
  • A portrait, with a credit line saying where it came from.
  • Three key facts with dates.
  • One quotation copied exactly from a primary source, with its source and date.
  • A short list of your sources at the bottom.

Check every quotation before it goes on the poster. Many famous lines are misattributed; our guide on how to check if a quote is real shows how in ten minutes.

Rehearsing, and practising out loud

Say the speech to a timer until it lands between 60 and 90 seconds, then practise it with distractions: siblings talking, music on. Visitors will interrupt you with questions, so prepare three short answers for the questions you are most likely to get. You can practise those by voice with an AI recreation of your figure on Yuga: ask it the questions a visitor would ask and compare its answers with your sources. It is an AI, not Curie, and it can be wrong, so your poster and your citations come from the documents. If you want a longer piece of writing first, our first-person biography speech guide shows how to build one.

Questions people ask

How long should a wax museum speech be?
Sixty to ninety seconds, which is about 150 to 200 words at a calm speaking pace. Visitors move on quickly and you will give the speech many times, so shorter is better. Time yourself aloud and cut anything that is not a fact, a date or a feeling the sources support.
What do you say in a wax museum project?
Introduce yourself as the figure with your birthplace and year, name the obstacle you faced, describe what you achieved with specific numbers and dates, mention what it cost you, and finish with a hook such as a question for the visitor. Speak in the first person throughout.
Who is a good person to be for a wax museum?
Someone with a clear story and a recognisable look: Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth I, Galileo Galilei or Ada Lovelace all work well. Pick a person who left their own writing, so you can put a real quotation on your poster.
What is the button in a wax museum project?
A paper or cardboard button, often a red circle, placed on the table or the back of the student's hand. Visitors press it to bring the figure to life. The student then gives the speech and freezes again when it ends.
Is the Marie Curie script on this page her real words?
No. It is a student script written in the first person from the facts of her life, as a wax museum speech should be. Her real words are the quotation from her 1921 lecture, which is cited separately, and that is the kind of line to put on a poster.

Sources