Drama Tuesday - Recipes for making drama teachers

Making a drama teacher is not constructing a robot – the mechanical bolting together of components bought off the shelf or from mail order catalogues. Though maybe, we need some AI learning emerging from that worldview. 

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-recipe/ 

A more organic metaphor is needed. 

From nature we might see the seed, sprouting seedlings, searching out shoots toward the light; nurturing rain, soil and  seasons; budding, fruiting, maturing; cycles of growth, decay, dormancy and rebirth.

From our need for nourishment, we might settle on a kitchen metaphor. What are the ingredients you need for a drama teacher?

Introduction

There are many ways to make a drama teacher. This is one of the most useful I have developed through my years of working as a drama educator.

Ingredients

Interest and desire – copious amounts

• The inclination and desire to teach drama (rather than teaching something else)

• A disposition for experiential learning – where priority is given to embodied learning

• The vision to see the potential of drama for learning and teaching

Knowledge, understanding and experiences in the art form of drama and theatre – dollops

• How drama grows from and extends play

• How drama works through taking on role – mimesis and identification

• How drama tells stories

• How drama enables us to express and share with others explores, ideas, emotions and experiences

• How drama uses the Elements of Drama – role, character, relationships, situation, focus, tension, space and time, voice and movement, language, contrast, symbol, mood, atmosphere and audience

• How drama uses skills and processes to make and share meaning

• How drama uses forms and styles

• How drama stays the same and changes across time and place

Knowledge and understanding and experiences of teaching drama – spoonfuls

• How we learn about, through and with drama

• How drama curriculum is structured and used

• How we draw on a range of drama teaching and learning strategies so students learn drama

• How we we shape and plan drama learning experiences

• How we co-construct meaning with student

• How we shape learning and teaching environments and contexts responding to the emotional, social and physical needs of students

• How we learn from others making and teaching drama

• How we reflect on, assess and report student learning in drama and our effectiveness as drama teachers

• How, as drama teachers, we have a number of related but distinctive roles: teacher, curriculum designer, director, role model, mentor, resource and facilities manager

Directions

None of these ingredients on their own make a drama teacher. 

It is how you bring them all together. It’s the sifting, blending, creaming, combining, folding, together. 

Remember: The process is never fully completed. It continues to happen even as we add more and more ingredients.

We taste test as we cook. The eyes, ears, taste buds of the cook are in play at every moment. Is this the right mix? Does it need more time? Are my directions clear and focused? Am I moving too fast? Too slow? Am I sustaining the tension, focus, sills and processes, mix of Elements of Drama?

We reflect. We learn. We sometimes fail. But we always keep trying and learning. 

We ask questions. We belong to guilds of drama teachers who openly share discoveries and learn from each other. 

Finishing the Cake

The drama cake is never quite finished. It is always in the process of being made.

And, one final essential for this recipe: in the end, as a drama teacher I am the sum of all that I know and do. Each time i step into the drama kitchen I bring with me knowledge and experience that i share with others in that specific place and moment, with that distinct group of people. It is not mechanical. It is not even following someone else’s recipe. It is creating our own recipe. As a teacher I am the sum of all that I am – combined with the people in the learning space with me. 

It is not so much what we do as much as who we are.

By the way, there are academic and theorised names for this stuff and researched realities to call on. 

There are links between disciplinary or content knowledge of drama and pedagogical content knowledge (Darling-Hammond, Hammerness, Grossman, Rust, & Shulman, 2005).

In learning to teach drama we do so by:

• Engaging in a activities like the ones we use to teach drama

• Having a specific knowledge base about the content of drama

• Knowing and being able to use specific drama teaching strategies

• Belonging to a community of drama teachers

• Having resources

In addition to these points we also need capacity to be reflective and reflexive about drama teaching.

From Learning Drama | Teaching Drama Robin Pascoe and Hannah Pascoe

From Learning Drama | Teaching Drama Robin Pascoe and Hannah Pascoe

Bibliography

Darling-Hammond, L., Hammerness, K., Grossman, P., Rust, F., & Shulman, L. (2005). The Design of Teacher Education Programs. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing Teachers for a Changing World What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

Music Monday - WA Covid lockdown

And in the blink of an eyelid,  parts of my home state of Western Australia is in a 5 day lockdown. We had gone 10 months with no community transmission of Covid-19,  schools were about to start today, and in many ways Western Australians had been lulled into a comfortable state of living as though the pandemic didn’t exist for us. Perhaps this (hopefully) short lockdown is the wakeup call we all needed?

My social media feed this morning highlighted two main camps when dealing with the new lockdown. In the first, and more active camp, are friends, colleagues and students who had already this morning, started a frenzy of at home activity - sorting teaching notes, organising clothes closets, meal preparation for the term, and so on. In the second camp were those who turned over in bed and went back to sleep this morning. I confess that I was in the latter camp today. Instead of leaving the house at 7am for my first scheduled lesson at 8am, I stayed in bed later than I had for the entire summer holiday.

Now I have four lockdown days to get something done and catch up with those in camp one!

On my shelf are three books on singing teaching that I have been reading and reviewing over the summer.

 As a teacher of many years now, I still find it fascinating to read other teachers’  and experts’ accounts of how they organise and deliver their teaching. Like so many, teachers,  I am eager to learn about new research in voice science. I like the challenge of new approaches -  and the comfort that comes when I  having my own approaches endorsed.

 Maybe as singing voice teachers, we are all looking for the safety-net of a definitive text to support our teaching?

Perhaps this is the holy grail searched for! The definitive text for the teaching of singing!

I had a lively discussion with Robin Pascoe about this. What follows is a summary of our thoughts and his distilling of the same onto the page:

There are so many sources of information to support our teaching, and none more so than those that we can find on the Internet. Rather than looking for the perfect text, we should be thinking more about the kinds of knowledge that we should be ensuring in the learning of all of our students.

Whatever the form, the information we base our teaching on needs to develop in our students the following kinds of knowing and understanding.

There are different texts for this complex bundle of learning. But the above are useful checkpoints to seeing how well a text suits our needs. 

Ultimately, our own teaching needs to be our own set of strategies to meet an agreed goal.

Your thoughts?

Drama Tuesday - What is drama education?

I am responding to a question from drama educators in China: How to determine the appropriate form of teaching (for example, DIE or TIE, or the ordinary form of drama education? 

It echoes a question I had once in a conference plenary session in Beijing where a confused drama educator asked what was the difference between creative dramatics and drama in education and theatre in education and Applied Theatre and … the list continued.

It seems that there are many different names for the broad field of drama education (See the list at the end). It must be confusing for many people particularly if they are trawling through the literature of the field in translation. Despite the efforts of many writers and researchers to clarify confusion, it is clear that the claims and counterclaims for defining the field of drama education still bedevil easy resolution. 

Writing in 1984, O’Hara observed, “drama is marked by diversity of practice, with those involved in the area appearing "unable or unwilling to speak for themselves with authority and unity in both academic and practical terms" (Norman, 1971)”. In 2007 Gavin Bolton in the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education titled his contribution A History of Drama Education: A Search for Substance. In 2016 Mages wrote  an overview of a number of prominent forms of educational drama and theatre designed to introduce educators, who are not drama or theatre specialists, to the paradigms and merits of educational drama and theatre. 

Towards resolving this issue

There is a need for our field of drama education to acknowledge the issue and to find a useful yet clear definition and explanation that works for teachers. Putting the problem in context:

• Drama education is the term for the broad field.

• Within drama education there are different terms with histories, traditions and practitioner points of view.

• These different terms can be confusing (particularly in translation)

To help address this confusion I begin by establishing some principles:  

1. There is a continuum and relationships between Play / Drama / Theatre.

Play is the broad field term for activities that are pleasurable and intrinsically motivated. Neuroscience research shows the role of play in human development particularly in imagination, language, visual and symbolic expression. Drama is a specific form of play based on symbolic representation of people and situations. Drama occurs within the broad field of Play. Within Drama there is Theatre, the specific forms of Drama focused on presentation to audiences.

The relationships show how Theatre is nested within Drama and Drama is nested within Play. The boundaries between Play, Drama and Theatre are porous and often there is overlap and blending.

2. Within the many differently named approaches to drama education there is a commonality of purpose: engaging people with the embodied experience of taking on role and acting out dramatic action. In doing so they learn, understand and work with identified Elements of Drama, Principles of Story, Forms and Types of Drama and use the Skills and Processes of Drama

3. It is helpful to think about three overarching categories of drama education (which can be used to group the many different approaches.

Terms for creative drama and similar or related constructs (Mages, 2008) 

Acting-out stories Paley, 1978 Child drama Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987 

Creative drama Cooper and Collins, 1992; Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987; Kardash and Wright, 1987; McCaslin, 1996; Vitz, 1984; Wagner, 1998 

Creative dramatics Cullinan, Jaggar, and Strickland, 1974; Strickland, 1973 Drama Brown, 1992; Conlan, 1995; Cooper and Collins, 1992 

Drama in education Brown, 1992 

Dramatic play Galda, 1984; Smilansky, 1968 

Dramatics Niedermeyer and Oliver, 1972; Paley, 1978 

Dramatization Fein, Ardila-Rey, and Groth, 2000; Kirk, 1998; McNamee, 1987; McNamee, McLane, Cooper, and Kerwin, 1985; Warash and Workman, 1993 

Educational drama Wagner, 1998 

Fantasy play Saltz, Dixon, and Johnson, 1977; Smith, Dalgleish, and Herzmark, 1981; Smith and Syddall, 1978 

Fantasy reenactment Pellegrini, 1984 

Group-dramatic play Christie, 1987 

Guided drama Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987 

Imaginative drama Paley, 1978 

Imaginative play Marbach and Yawkey, 1980; Saltz and Johnson, 1974 

Improvisation Brown, 1992; Conlan, 1995; Niedermeyer and Oliver, 1972 

Informal classroom drama Wagner, 1998 

Let’s pretend play Yawkey, 1979 

Make-believe Christie, 1983; Singer, 1973; Smilansky, 1968; Yawkey, 1979 

Play Fein, 1981; Galda, 1982; Silvern, 1980; Yawkey, 1979 

Play enactment Saltz et al., 1977 

Play tutoring Christie, 1983; Smith et al., 1981 

Pretend play Fein, 1981; Harris, 2000; Nicolopoulou, 2002 

Pretense Fein, 1981; Leslie, 1987 

Process drama Montgomerie and Ferguson, 1999 

Reenactment Nielsen, 1993 

Role enactment Fein, 1981 

Role play or role playing Brown, 1992; Cullinan et al., 1974; Fein, 1981; Strickland, 1973 

Role-taking Levy, Wolfgang, and Koorland, 1992

Shared enactment Fein et al., 2000 

Social role enactment Fein, 1981 Sociodramatic play Saltz et al., 1977; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Smilansky, 1968; Smilansky and Shefatya, 1990; Smith et al., 1981; Smith and Syddall, 1978; Warash and Workman, 1993; Wolf, 1985 

Story dramatization Brown, 1992; Cooper and Collins, 1992; Levy et al., 1992; McNamee et al., 1985; Vitz, 1984 

Story-acting Nicolopoulou, 1996; Richner and Nicolopoulou, 2001 

Symbolic play Marbach and Yawkey, 1980; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Silvern, Taylor, Williamson, Surbeck, and Kelley, 1986 

Thematic-fantasy play Pellegrini, 1984; Pellegrini and Galda, 1982; Saltz et al., 1977; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Silvern et al., 1986; Williamson, 1993

To this list you might add role drama, applied theatre, theatre in education, story drama. 

The list goes on.

Is it any wonder that teachers in classrooms are confused?

Bibliography

Bolton, G. (2007). A History of Drama Education: A Search for Substance. In L. Bresler (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (Vol. 1, pp. 45-62). Dordrecht: Springer.

Mages, W. K. (2008). Does Creative Drama Promote Language Development in Early Childhood? A Review of the Methods and Measures Employed in the Empirical Literature. Review of Educational Research, 78, 124–152. doi:10.3102/0034654307313401

Mages, W. K. (2016). Educational Drama and Theatre Paradigms for Understanding and Engagement. R&E-SOURCE http://journal.ph-noe.ac.at Open Online Journal for Research and Education(Special Issue #5, September 2016, ISSN: 2313-1640). 

O'Hara, M. (1984). Drama in Education: A Curriculum Dilemma. Theory Into Practice, 22(4 Teaching the Arts), 314-320. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1476387

Music Monday - Mismatched

This evening, Robin and I, with friends, attended the final performance of Mismatched in the Perth Fringe World Festival. The photo, taken after the show, is of me with the show’s pianist, Tommaso Pollio, who makes a reasonably average electric keyboard sound almost as good as when he (more often) plays the Fazioli grand piano at WAAPA. The final note on piano in tonight’s Maria, (more important in the score than the final sung note in my opinion), was every bit as evocative as you’d expect to hear in the Bernstein orchestration. Bravo Tommaso!

Mismatched describes itself as ‘a musical celebration of unlikely couples, starring cabaret veterans: Penny Shaw, Robert Hofmann and Tommaso Pollio’. It’s a slick and musically satisfying hour. The singing is top shelf from both singers, with just the right amount of operatic tone to please the audience. It is suggestive without being sleazy. It is middle of the road rather than edgy. The audience loved it, as did we. 

One line in the show particularly resonated with me. Penny Shaw talks of leaving a UK season of Phantom of the Opera to follow a relationship to Perth, Western Australia. She talked of being happily married here now for 20 years and asks the audience, “Who would have believed me twenty years ago, if I’d said that in 2021 there would be more work for singers in Perth, than on Broadway, the West End and the rest of the world combined?” 

Strange times indeed. 

Perth, one of the most isolated capital cities in the world (and to a large extent because of that) feels almost normal during this Fringe.

And so, we must remind ourselves again, that the rest of the world is far from normal.  As far as we can, we must work to support our fellow artists, not only here, but across the world. Otherwise, they may not be there when the pandemic ends.

We arts workers are not ‘essential workers’ but (again quoting from the show), we are where essential workers seek escape when they finish work.

Music Monday - Happy New Year, Happy New Anthem?

Happy New Year to all music teachers. May this be a year which slowly improves on 2020 and may we all resume choir singing and directing without fear of spreading Covid-19.

Over the past few days in Australia, discussion has again started on our Australian national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. It’s a bit of a dirge musically and the words have long been seen as inappropriate to Indigenous Australians as well as those who have come here from all over the world. Our conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced that as of 1st January 2021, one word of the anthem would be changed – from ‘For we are young and free’ to ‘For we are one and free’. Almost as though this simple change will solve the many other issues with the text of the song. And to be honest, in a crowd singing the changed line, who would really know? 

I took another look at the complete verses of Advance Australia Fair, written by Peter Dodds McCormick in the 1870s. Verse 2 is particularly irksome, especially to Aboriginal Australians, the original custodians of this land:

When gallant Cook from Albion sail’d,

To trace wide oceans o’er,

True British courage bore him on,

Til he landed on our shore.

Then here he raised old England’s flag,

The standard of the brave;

“With all her faults we love her still

Britannia rules the wave.”

In joyful strains then let us sing

Advance Australia fair.

Surely we can do better than this? 

Personally, I think an obvious time to change the anthem would be at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign – when I hope we will finally become a republic. In the meantime though – is a one word change enough?

Drama Tuesday - Reflections on international drama education

First World Congress Oporto, Portugal July 1992

In July 2013 during the 8th World Congress on Drama/Theatre and Education in Paris, France, I was elected as President of the IDEA Executive Committee and re-elected in  2017 during the celebration of 25 years of IDEA held at the University of Evora in Portugal. It was fitting that this celebration was held in Portugal because in July 1992, during the First World Drama Education Conference in Porto Portugal, IDEA was founded. I was one of the lucky ones who was in Porto at the founding of IDEA and have been to all 8 of the congresses. As well I have represented Drama Australia at IDEA meetings in Montpellier, Budapest, Bergen,  Belém. 

International Collaboration in 1992

Seven years as IDEA President has been challenging. During that time two planned congresses – Ankara, Turkey (2016/2017) and Beijing, China (2020) – have been cancelled because of civil unrest in Turkey and the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic. 

During my time in this role I have visited many places and had the opportunity to learn more about the wider world of drama education. 

A short video presentation of my report can be found at https://vimeo.com/manage/461230241/general.

My final report to the IDEA General Council can be read at

https://www.ideadrama.org/Documents-for-IDEA-2020-GCM 

I have worked with a dedicated team of volunteers who have spent long hours in ZOOM meetings (before the Pandemic and during) in pursuit of the aims of IDEA. I thank them for their ongoing commitment and voluntary work.

In this post I make some observations about Drama Education from an international perspective.

The world of drama education is wide

There are many different approaches to drama education. Although I have a suspicion that the original proponents of an international drama education association, thought that their vision of drama education would emerge as the dominant model, the congress in Porto quickly established that there is not one way of drama education. 

The full title of IDEA is a clue. The clumsy construction in English  is drama/theatre. If you look to the titleWords and definitions can be slippery. Some words do not have ready translations. One person or country’s drama is in another worldview theatre. In fact, in some places, there is no direct or easy translation of the term drama. 

But it goes deeper than just words and definitions. In the French speaking world, there is the concept of partenariat where drama education is a partnership between classroom teacher and actor/professional/teaching artist and theatre expertise lies with the professional partner. By contrast the model adopted in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, for example, is based on a dedicated trained drama teacher. In a similar vein, there are places that assume there will be drama in the school curriculum; there are many places where that is not happening (see discussion below). Drama education is not solely found in school settings. It is in communities, associations, political action and the streets.

In some countries and cultures, local approaches are seen as the only approach. IDEA has had to negotiate a wide definition of drama and theatre education. This is noticeable in the aims of IDEA

There is another aspect of this wide church of drama education: the role of dominant language in sharing and limiting communicating about practice. Often there is exemplary practice happening beyond the world of English. As IDEA has shown there are drama educators in the Scandinavian countries that parallel what has happened in English speaking countries but with a unique identity and flavour. Similarly, the walls of language prevent outstanding practice in Turkey being shared with the wider community. English may be the dominant language of the Internet, but there many languages of drama and we need to recognise and acknowledge this multiplicity.

It is only when you are in-country that you can understand local perspectives. World-views are powerful. Don’t we say that the essence of drama is when we step into someone else’s shoes. Nowhere is that more evident than when we talk about the world of drama education. 

Drama in the Arts

Drama education is an integral part of arts education. The history of arts education, however, has seen drama accepted as part of a wider mandate for arts education. This has been a hard won battle (and continues to be so in many places where the dominant arts education narrative is written by music and visual (fine) arts. Drama education has been the giant knocking at the door (Stinson, O’Toole & Moore. (2009). Drama and Curriculum: the giant at the door. 10.1007/978-1-4020-9370-8). 

The concept of the Arts as a field of curriculum finds voice in writers such as Peter Abbs (1987) in Living Powers The Arts in Education. In the Australian context since the Hobart Declaration on Schooling  (1989) there has a commitment to with The Arts as one of the eight curriculum learning areas model. Drama has had a place at the table when it came to writing the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014). Just as the implied mandate of the Arts in schools is not realised in practice in all schools (see, for example discussion in, Ewing, 2020) the place of drama in all Australian schools s not necessarily secured.

The situation beyond Australia is similarly mixed. 

The impact of the pandemic in the united States shows contraction of arts education opportunities. In Greece the government announced that for 2021, the arts would not be offered for senior secondary students. The success stories of the arts and drama in the Welsh curriculum and in Romania are counterbalanced by what is happening in England. 

Drama educators must continue to be the giants knocking at the doors of curriculum demanding to be let in. 

There is a role for IDEA in this world wide claim.

IDEA was a founding member of the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE  (https://www.waae.online/) and continues to support the work of the alliance drawing together ISME, the International Society for Music Education, InSEA, International Society of Education through Art, and WDA, the World Dance Alliance

IDEA and the wider world of Drama and theatre

A question to ask about drama education and theatre and drama is: why is there a need for IDEA when there are other organisations like ITI/ASSITEJ/etc working in the field with similar objectives? What is distinctive about the mandate of IDEA?

While IDEA has affiliations with ITI the mandate of this United Nations/UNESCO body is  broader than IDEA’s aims. Similarly the focus of ASSITEJ is on theatre makers and making while undoubtedly sharing an interest in young people. 

When IDEA was funded, there was a need for the specific and particular concerns of drama and theatre educators to be heard.

IDEA has long sought to strengthen its ties with UNESCO. Despite the troubled current situation of UNESCO, underfunded since the withdrawal of the USA, there is value in reaching out to the members of UNESCO to further the aims of IDEA. 

Drama Swings and roundabouts

In some places there are good news stories about drama education particularly in schools. There are sad news stories. In Iceland, Drama is included in the primary curriculum – a victory to be celebrated. In Finland, despite a long campaign from FIDEA, the Finish member of IDEA, drama in school has yet to be realised. 

It cannot be said that there is a universal entitlement for all for drama education. The struggle continues.

Some concluding thoughts

Seven years working voluntarily for an international organisation across languages, cultures and locations has been challenging. 

It has been rewarding and sometimes frustrating. There is work is still waiting to be done. There have been some small gains and victories; many disappointments. 

The richness of our professional lives is a reflection of our capacity to belong. Through IDEA (and similar) I have been a member of a guild of drama educators, learning from each other, enriching each other.  

I particularly thank my family for supporting my time in IDEA. Members of my family have accompanied me on the IDEA journey. My son Phillip was with me in Budapest for a General Council Meeting in 1997; my second son, Ben was with me in Kissumu Kenya in 1998 and in Belém, Brazil in 2010; my daughter Hannah was with me in Ottawa, Canada in 2004 and in Hong Kong in 2007. Finally, my wife, Liz, was with me in Frankfurt November 2019 (taking time from her busy career). More importantly, they have supported the travel i have undertaken (I stress, mostly taken at our own expense as funds within IDEA are limited and funding for travel in universities and institutions have long since dried up). As I move to the role of Immediate Past President, I leave with a sense of knowing that I could not have offered or done more. Even though there is always more to do, I pass the mantle to those who follow in the hope that I have contributed to our successes and survival into the future, stronger and more resilient. IDEA 

Bibliography

Abbs, P. (Ed.) (1987). Living Powers: The Arts in Education. London: Falmer Press.

ACARA. (2014). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/introduction

Ewing, R. (2020). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. A critical opportunity. Curriculum Perspectives, 40, 75-81. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-019-00098-w

MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs. (1989). The Hobart Declaration on Schooling. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/EC-Publications/EC-Publications-archive/EC-The-Hobart-Declaration-on-Schooling-1989.aspx

Seasons Greetings 2020

Stage Page wishes all of our readers a joyous and relaxing Christmas and Holiday season.

As we head towards the end of 2020, we hope that wherever you are, whether in another Covid lockdown, or lucky enough to be free to celebrate with family and friends, that you will find music at the centre of your celebrations.

And we hope against hope that 2021 will see the start of a return to more live music performance across the world and that the livelihoods of our precious musicians and singers will start up again.

We look forward to connecting with you all again in the New Year.

Drama Tuesday - Play and Drama

We are putting on a play! say the excited school students. 

Let’s study the play! says the English Literature teacher. 

Enter HAMLET and Players in Act 3 Scene II of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And the test for Claudius set by Hamlet lies in the performance of the players. As Hamlet says:

…the play's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King

The https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/play+a%2Fyour+part says that to play (one's) part is to do what one should and is expected to do within a group in order to achieve a particular result; to perform one's role.

"Play Your Part" is a song by Canadian singer Deborah Cox. 

A “play” is a term in American football. 

Wikipedia says: A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is a playwright.

In the film business, the shooting script is is called a screen play.

Around the world, there are theatres called the Playhouse

And there are many more references to play. Find and share them. 

There is a clear link between Play, Drama and Theatre. I would argue that drama and theatre are nested porously within the wider filed of activity that is play. 

So much of what we do in drama and theatre calls on our capacity for play, purposeful play. We explore ideas and feelings; we experiment with forms and approaches; we derive pleasure and satisfaction (that old fashioned term: fun).

It is useful to remind ourselves about play. 

Defining play is difficult. It has many definitions, characteristics, types and approaches. 

The dual nature of play is important to understanding drama. Play and drama are both simultaneously part of life and experience and separated from it. There are rules and conventions but also opportunities and unscripted or improvisational moments. Drama and Play are social. They engage our physical, thinking and emotional capacities. 

The connection between play and drama can be powerfully argued. 

The Australian Early Years Framework (ELF) Belonging, Being and Becoming, has a specific emphasis on play-based learning. It builds on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that recognises children’s right to play. Play-based learning is a context for learning through which children organise and make sense of their social worlds, as they engage actively with people, objects and representations. 

It can be argued that drama is also a powerful learning medium where we make sense and meaning of our world as we experience it actively engaging with people and roles and representations of our experiences. 

In closing I share two images  taken a long time ago when I was in Porto, Portugal, July 1992 for the First World Congress on Drama Education (the founding of IDEA, the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association). On a rare afternoon of walking in the city, down by the dock area, I saw kids playing with old tires. The rubbish on the street of abandoned rubber tyres, had been appropriated by these kids and made into play. Two sticks of wood, the rubber tyre, energy and above all imagination to see the possibilities. This sense of play is exhilarating (in what looked like a low socio-economic setting). What looks like simple object play has the capacity to extend into imagination and role. 

Play is vital for understanding drama and theatre. 

In play we find our capacity for creative improvisation, imagination and exploration of form. 

Let’s play more!

The Australian Early Years Framework (ELF) Belonging, Being and Becoming 

can be found at https://www.education.gov.au/early-years-learning-framework-0 

Music Monday - Changing perspectives on performance

We are all familiar with the standard licensing agreements for school performances that stipulated  no recordings, etc. 

The world of the Coronavirus COVID-119 Pandemic has quickly changed all of that. Music Theatre International has just sent out this message.

What are the new “rules”?

What can and can’t be done?

For example, there is an asterisk about Broadway Junior plays: *(Excludes Disney’s Aladdin JR., Disney’s Aladdin KIDS, Disney’s Frozen JR., Disney’s Frozen KIDS, Disney’s The Lion King JR., Disney’s The Lion King KIDS, and Disney’s Moana JR.

You might check out:

Live Streaming: The Show Can Go on with an Online Audience

Streaming Previously Recorded Performances

It is great to see the licensing agents are responding to the needs of schools performance during the current pandemic. Will this last beyond the current situation?

What are the implications for rehearsing?

What are the questions we now have?

Drama Tuesday - A Process for Planning for Specific Year groups

The diagram included in this post is a route map for planning for a specific year group of students in the Western Australia K-10 Syllabus.

In this syllabus, each of the five Arts subjects – Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts –  is organised into two interrelated strands: Making and Responding.

The syllabus also provides

• Year level descriptions

• Content description

• Achievement standards

The planning process needs to take account of strands, year level, content and achievement standards.

Here is a flow chart I designed for my students to help them understand the processes of planning to meet the requirements of the syllabus. 

(Click here to see the flow chart in more detail)