Learning Drama 1998 – reconsidered for now (Part 1)
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Learning Drama An overview
Learning drama in Western Australian schools draws on a number of different traditions and approaches:
an actor’s apprenticeship in the theatre
the conservatory - a school in theatre -
the speech and drama studio
literary study
At the heart of the practical application of these approaches is a commitment to:
improvisation, process drama and playbuilding
Just as students have different learning styles that need to be catered for, so teachers need to use a balance of approaches and draw on aspects of all of these different traditions.
1. Actor’s apprenticeship
The ‘actor’s apprenticeship’ approach to drama teaching and learning draws on the English repertory model. An aspiring young actor joined a provincial repertory company producing weekly plays in traditional, proscenium-arch theatres. The older members of the company dispensed wisdom - “Always turn down stage on your down stage foot” - to the young apprentices, who typically started as assistant stage managers and with "bit parts". Learning was by osmosis, observation and experience were the teachers. It was a forgiving learning experience as mistakes were lived through. It was practical and included lots of staging wisdom. It placed emphasis on a strong narrative, the role of the director and the star system.
In the school setting this translates into a‘putting on a production' approach to learning drama. The role of the teacher as director is central - the teacher generally selects the play, which is always scripted, and does the casting. The student actors go through the rehearsal and performance process. There may be some discussion and exploration of characterisation and there are often side projects where students might design sets and posters or manage front of house. Generally the casting has meant that soem students have larger roles and a more central part in the learning process. In the full-scale school production, younger actors learned through watching older students.
2. The conservatory approach
Developed in the late 19th Century, the conservatory approach set up schools of acting. The focus in this approach is on providing "conservatories" or protective hothouses in which the talent of students in specific skills are nurtured in preparation for bing put inuse in the theatrical worlds beyond the conservatory.
The conservatory model is apparent in a range of pre-professional institutions in Australia, notably the WA Academy of Performing Arts and the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
3. Speech and Drama
This approach is drawn from the work of the private studio. This approach focused on developing skills - particularly in voice - and applying them in drama. This worked tended to place less emphasis on developing physicalisation and often used fragments of drama working out of the context of whole dramatic texts.
4. Literary study
A literary study approach considers drama as literary texts - outside the practical demands of performance in the theatre. Taking drama scripts as the primary form of expression, literary approaches apply the rules of discourse, analysis and formal evaluation to the scripts of drama and the study of the lives and works of playwrights.
While there is much of value in the literary study approach - notably intellectual rigour, sustained analysis and clarity of focus - such an approach down values drama as a dynamic relationship between actors/playmakers and audiences. Literary study approaches tend to de-contextualise drama from the interpretative moment of creation and to treat the script of drama as if it were the whole of the drama rather than seeing the script as blueprint to be realised in performance.
At the heart of the practical application of these approaches is a commitment to:
Improvisation, Playbuilding and Process Drama
Contemporary approaches to drama education have been influenced by a re-discovering of the value and role of improvisation in learning about drama [a re-vitalising of the traditions found in commedia dell'arte]. This work in improvisation supported student-centred learning approaches.
Often a reaction against the repertory and “speech and drama” approaches, there has been a gradual maturing of this approach and a development beyond simplistic, short-lived spontaneous improvisation fragments or going for the jugular of comic gags.
In particular, playbuilding, using improvisation to initiate, explore and structure drama, has lead to sustained and effective student-developed drama. Similarly, process drama approaches - as Cecily O’Neill and John O'Toole describe them - is the sustained use of improvisation to structure complex dramatic experiences; it is collaborative involving all who take part as both playmaker and audience; it is sustained and “in process” and structured in ways that are beyond “one-off” or small scale improvisation activities. At the heart of process drama is the skilful “negotiating and renegotiating the elements of dramatic form, in terms of the contexts and purposes of the participants”. The term pre-text refers to the initiating source or impulse to the process drama.
In Part 2 of this series, I explore Good Practice in Teaching and Learning Drama
Aspects of course planning, teaching styles, learning processes and assessment that contribute to good practice in drama.
In Part 3 the focus is on Safe Practice.
Bibliography
O'Toole, J., Stinson, M., & Moore, T. (2009). Drama and Curriculum A Giant at the Door: Springer.
