Drama Tuesday - Spaces of Performance

 Connecting drama students with their immediate world

There is a useful introduction to outdoor theatre included recently in the TheatreFolk site:

https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/theatre-history-introduction-to-outdoor-theatre/ 

Drama has many spaces. It can be performed in purpose-built theatres. It can be performed in streets. with ingenuity, almost any space can be turned into a place to play. We teach our students ways about Spaces of Performance and recognising the challenges of making drama in found spaces.

Many schools in Western Australia have amphitheatres included in their design. Too often they become repositories of litter or passion pits for over excited students. Rarely, if ever, are they used for drama. 

There are obvious challenges in using an outdoor venue.

• The weather is always a risk. It can rain or you and your cast can swelter in the heat/cold/wind.

• There are technical challenges for lighting, sound equipment. What do you need so that your performers can be seen and heard? How do you run power? How do ensure that cables are safe (and safe in the weather)?

• There’s also security to consider – does an outdoor performance mean that you have to bump in/out all the technical equipment each time you perform?

• Sight lines and safety for audience (you don’t want to have someone’s Gran tumble down the steps).

• Most importantly, what do you need to do preparing and rehearsing your students for the space:

• Voice and projection

• Vocal safety and health in outdoor settings

• Protection from sun and wind

• Managing props and costumes (costume changes when necessary)?

Overall, there are many things to consider when you work alfresco. But the rewards for your students are many. 

There is also an important benefit in that students are helped to consider that drama doesn’t always have to be performed in a purpose-built venue. 

And that there are opportunities for drama in their immediate geographic location if they are open to them. 

I was reminded of this reason for thinking about exploring spaces of performance in the local community. 

Amphitheatre, Geraldton, Western Australia

I took this photo during my time as Consultant for Drama. I had been working in a local secondary school and the drama teacher complained to me about the lack of local theatre for her students to visit. She went on to add that her school did not have a performing arts centre or theatre space and she taught in an “ordinary” classroom. For most of my time teaching in schools, I too taught in classrooms where the furniture was pushed back and we competed with the ambient noise from other classrooms. In that situation, there is only one thing to do: to reach out to the local community. In Merredin, we worked with the local Repertory Club and used their space, the Cummins Theatre a refurbished picture palace (that had been at one stage moved brick by brick from Coolgardie). At Armadale SHS, we found a performance space in the Pioneer Village, a replica music hall. Down the road from Armadale, the drama teacher at Kelmscott SHS performed Alex Buso’s play MacQuarrie in the courtyard outside the canteen.  

Breathtaking under threatening skies

It is not the space that makes the drama.

What matters is how we fill the space. 

After I finished my conversation with the teacher, I had some time before getting back on the plane and drove around the local area. Outside the local Council buildings – 200 metres from the school – there is a full amphitheatre. I wondered if that teacher had ever thought of walking her drama class to the amphitheatre to explore ways of bringing Greek and Roman drama to life.

Drama spaces are waiting to found and filled by students.

The Theatre at Epidaurus