Drama Tuesday - World Teacher Day 2021

What makes a memorable Drama Teacher?

On World Teacher Day I pose a simple challenge: who are the inspirational, unforgettable, indelible, significant, impressive, illustrious, brilliant, timeless drama teachers in your lives?

And why are they so memorable?

The drama teachers who I remember –

• Know drama and theatre

• Know how to teach drama and theatre

• Always learning and reflecting

• Care about the learning of their students

• Know curriculum, progression in learning drama and assessment that matches drama to students’ ages and stages of development

• Model effective drama teaching and learning

• Advocate for drama

• Confidently understand their role and purpose

Or to share this graphically:

Of course there are academic words for all this.

Teach drama focuses on embodied learning in the arts (Bresler, 2004). Through practical, hands-on experiences in drama, we model the ways that students learn the arts and ways they are taught. This  engenders embodied teaching.

This approach is based on sound research about providing:

• Analogue experiences – these are experiences like the ones students in drama experience, providing teachers with similar learning experiences that they need to facilitate for their students (Borko & Putnam, 1995; Morocco & Solomon, 1999).

• Content focus – unambiguous content description (Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002; S.Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & SukYoon, 2001; Shulman, 1986).

• Active learning – where teachers are engaged in the analysis of teaching and learning; learning from other teachers and from their own teaching; reviewing examples of effective teaching practice (Desimone et al., 2002; Franke, Fennema, & Carpenter, 1997; Morocco & Solomon, 1999; S.Garet et al., 2001).

• Dialogue amongst teachers – belonging to a community of drama teachers participating in discussion with practising teachers (T. R. Guskey, 1986, 2003; Virginia Richardson, October 1990).

• Long-term support and feedback – support beyond the immediate experiences in the workshop through enrolling in a community of drama teachers (Borko & Putnam, 1995; T.R. Guskey, 2002).

This is an articulated theoretical framework for drama teacher education course design that steps beyond pragmatic functionalism. It is a framework informed by Dewey, Vygotsky, Bruner, Eisner, Greene and others. Learning to teach drama involves acts of purposeful meaning-making that draw together personal experiences and those of others (Dewey, 1938; Eisner, 2002). No one learns alone (Grumet, 2004; Vygotsky, 1978). Drama teachers learn cognitively, somatically and affectively – mind, body and spirit (Peters, 2004). They work with enactive, iconic and symbolic modes (Bruner, 1990). Learning to teach drama engages aesthetic imagination (Greene, 1995). Learning to teach drama involves proactive participation in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Learning to teach drama organises drama knowledge, categorises it and uses strategies of paradigmatic thinking and narrative building (Bruner, 1991).

Extract from chapter about drama teacher education in a forthcoming book 

But you can sum up all these ideas:

Memorable Drama Teachers know their stuff… They get their act together and take it on the road everyday…

Bibliography

Borko, H., & Putnam, R. T. (1995). Expanding a teacher’s knowledge base: A cognitive psychological perspective on professional development. In T. R. Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.), Professional Development in Education. New York: New York: Teachers College Press.

Bresler, L. (2004). Knowing Bodies, Knowing Minds - Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18(1), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343711

Desimone, L. M., Porter, A. C., Garet, M. S., Yoon, K. S., & Birman, B. F. (2002). Effects of Professional Development on Teachers' Instruction: Results from a Three-Year Longitudinal Study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(2 (Summer 2002)), 81-112. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594138

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi.

Eisner, E. W. (2002). What can eduction learn from the arts about the practice of education? John Dewey Lecture for 2002, Stanford University. Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/eisner_arts_and_the_practice_or_education.htm . Last updated: April 17, 2005.

Franke, M., Fennema, E., & Carpenter, T. (1997). Teachers creating change: Examining evolving beliefs and classroom practice. In E. Fennema & B. Scott-Nelson (Eds.), Mathematics teachers in transition (pp. 255-282). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, The Arts and Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Grumet, M. (2004). No one learns alone. In N. Rabkin & R. Redmond (Eds.), Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century, (pp. 49–80). Chicago, IL: Columbia College Chicago.

Guskey, T. R. (1986). Staff development and the process of teacher change. Educational Researcher, 15, 5-12. 

Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8, 381-391. 

Guskey, T. R. (2003). Scooping up meaningful evidence. Journal of Staff Development, 24(4), 27-30. 

Morocco, C. C., & Solomon, M. Z. (1999). Revitalising professional development. In M. Z. Solomon (Ed.), The diagnostic teacher: Constructing new approaches to professional development (pp. 247-267). New York: Teachers College Press.

Peters, M. (2004). Education and the Philosophy of the Body: Bodies of Knowledge and Knowledges of the Body. In L. Bresler (Ed.), Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds - Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

S.Garet, M., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & SukYoon, K. (2001). What Makes Professional Development Effective? Results From a National Sample of Teachers. American Educational Research Journal. doi:https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312038004915

Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. 

Virginia Richardson. (October 1990). Significant and Worthwhile Change in Teaching Practice. Educational Researcher, 19(7), 10-18. doi:10.2307/1176411

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Music Monday - How does an increasingly data-driven education system affect growth and satisfaction in music learning and performance?

A few weeks ago, I ran into a high school music teacher friend. She has decided to retire at the end of this school year. Why? Well, like many of us, she is of an age where retirement is a possibility. But more significantly, a driving force in her decision was what she perceived to be the increasing demand for data collection across all aspects of the education system. 

This teacher’s retirement will mean a true loss for that school and its students – she is  passionate and dedicated worn down by the demands of the system.

There is no doubt that as teachers we are asked to be increasingly accountable – and that can be a very good thing. But it does seem to come at a cost. For every step of the learning journey there is a marking rubric to be filled out, both in schools and in universities now. Again, a marking rubric does provide a level of moderation, but can it ever tell the whole story?

For many years I have prepared year 12 secondary school students for their exit performance exams in music. We spend years 11 and 12 practising songs with a close eye on the marking rubric and ensuring that melodies and rhythms (to name just two criteria) are accurately performed. I teach in a specialist music theatre program, so this is sometimes at odds with how the songs would be performed in the real world. 

Many of my students go on to audition for places in the various tertiary music theatre courses across Australia. Those auditions take place around the same time as the performance exams but have very different expectations. It is much less about the accurate processing of notational information and much more about demonstrating potential in story-telling and vocal flexibility. The final voice lessons for year 12 students tend to be a slightly crazy mix of ‘now let’s try the song in exam style’ or ‘sing it this time as you will for your audition’. Two versions of the same song – the less ‘correct’ one often the more authentic.

Similarly, the tertiary course where I teach music theatre and acting students,  has taking up the use of marking rubrics for assessment. For the final year music theatre students there is often a disconnect between preparing for the assessment and preparing for their careers as performers.

I don’t pretend to have answers. I know we needed to move on from the old days of ‘I just know what an A grade sounds like’ or ‘this student deserves an A; they have worked so hard’ to something more accountable. But in so doing, have we sacrificed a little of the joy? I hope not. 

My soon to be retired teacher friend mentioned at the start worked incessantly to maintain the joy. But in doing that she perhaps burnt herself out.

Drama Tuesday - Perth Festival

 Connecting our students with the Arts in their society

https://www.perthfestival.com.au/media/uqgd5kdp/creative-learning-brochure-2022.pdf?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PF_ConnectCL_Launch&utm_content=version_A 

The Perth Festival which runs in late Summer in Perth, has announced the program for teachers and students ahead of a Festival launch in November.

It’s always exciting to have an insight into the Festival delights. 

Also wonderful is the  commitment to engaging young people and their teachers. The arts in schools are not separate from the wider reach of the arts in society. It is important that young people see from an earlier age the opportunities for connection. 

As the Australian Curriculum The Arts (ACARA, 2014) reminds us: 

In making and responding to  artworks, students consider a range of viewpoints or perspectives through which artworks can be explored and interpreted. Responding in each arts subject involves students, as artists and audiences, exploring, responding to, analysing, interpreting and critically evaluating  artworks they experience. Students learn to understand, appreciate and critique the arts through the critical and contextual study of artworks and by making their own artworks.

A vibrant arts culture in the wider society is essential for effective  arts education in schools. There needs to be a symbiotic relationship between arts learning and arts making and enjoyment in our community. 

There are also  TEACHER PROFESSIONAL LEARNING opportunities.

Foreman Funnies - Some thoughts about school productions...

……and building a theatre culture in a school.

We took the bold step of including a Theatre Excursions Fee on Booklist (arguing that as there wasn’t a textbook, it was a reasonable ask). Students then opted to draw down on this account when they chose to join the excursion. The fee was set to allow for two or three productions. 

So, onto the school bus (and sometimes our cars) students would pile. Thankfully, we could call on other teachers (like Dave) who had a bus license. While mostly we focused on the productions in Perth International Arts Festival, we also  took students to see productions in nearby schools and also the local amateur and community theatre groups.

If you want to learn drama (and teach drama) you need to experience drama.

The spin offs from seeing theatre were many. Seeing professional theatre encouraged us to inject a stronger sense of expectation in our productions.

Performance seasons ran for two weeks

By the following year, 1986 we played our productions Wednesday to Saturday for two weeks after having run only a single week in the first year. The two week runs continued until I left the school in 1989. And the first four shows were originals or original adaptations.

We loved giving the students the experience of backing up their productions for a second week. It gave them a hint of ‘professional’ theatre. And playing Wednesday to Saturday meant many of the cast had to negotiate with late night shopping employers for evenings off. (Sometimes a note on school letterhead helped.) This was yet another life skill the students needed to develop.

Casts learnt the different moods of crowds: Wednesday – quiet, I have work in the morning, Thursday – damn, I should be doing the weekly shop, Friday – starting to relax for the weekend, and Saturday – letting go, let’s party. And for the earlier days in the run they knew they had to work harder.

They learned the importance of a ‘laugher’ in the audience. You always want that one person in the audience who gets the jokes and laughs loudly. It gives everyone else permission to let go. I loved one of the cleaners at City Beach. She got EVERY one of my stupid jokes and roared with laughter every time.

Why productions are important

For drama students being in a production is sometimes as important – and often times more important – as classwork.

Speaking of City Beach, we did an Upper School Drama production each year and a Year 10 Panto (where roles were included for students who didn’t get into the class because of class size limits (there was always some kids hanging round rehearsals even though they couldn’t get into the enrolled class. And we included the odd ex-student as well in performance roles). Several years, in addition, we managed a whole school production.

Very few of these were ‘mainstream’ plays, over half were originals, but we always had audiences. 

What sorts of productions

In an earlier post, Robin Pascoe wrote about the approachability of Broadway Junior shows. And I agree, they have lots to recommend them. They have become the staple of the Specialist Performing Arts program at Wanneroo Secondary College. They provide excellent challenges for the students. 

The ‘plus’ is that once they reach Year 11 & 12 Drama, they are then in a position to then attack more broader works, some of them devised.

The one thing that schools have lost is the ‘Whole School Production’. There are always students who don’t take Drama for any number of reasons; timetable clashes, pathways, parental reticence… and the Whole School Production gives them an outlet to participate. 

Mind you, in a program like that at Wanneroo, with up to 12 productions a year – Dance, Drama, Music – where in the world would they be able to fit in a whole school production?

Drama Tuesday - If We Were Villains

 The Never Ending Quest – Stories of Drama Education

Let’s be clear from the very start – If We Were Villains (Rio, 2017) is a murder mystery (I will try to avoid any spoilers!). My interest in  this story is the specialist Shakespearean theatre and acting school context: the people and the setting.

The action takes place in a small liberal arts/performing arts college in an undisclosed location in the Mid-West in driving distance from O’Hare in Chicago. The action focuses on the seven remaining fourth year students in the Shakespeare Acting cohort. 

The author has neatly skewered acting types (and stereotypes) – hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, supernumerary, observer (though along the way, the roles change). These are the seven who have survived the end-of-yearly purges. Richard, pure power, six foot three, carved from concrete, black eyes, thrilling bass voice, playing despots and warlords. Meredith, supple curves, skin like satin, designed for seduction. Wren, Richard’s cousin, ingenue, girl next door, waif thin, Filppa, tall, olive skinned, cool, chameleonic. James, quintessentially heroic, handsome like a Disney Prince. Oliver (who narrates the story) sees himself as average in every imaginable way.

The staff are also deftly drawn – Gwendolyn, the bangle leaden, redheaded stick figure hippie acting teacher; Frederick, the chalk dust laden theatre history and text don; and, Camillo, the physical action, combat and movement teacher. And the distantly inspirational Dean of the Academy: I encourage you to live boldly … make art, make mistakes, have no regrets; we expect you to dazzle us and we do not like to be disappointed. (p. 36). The hothouse climate of selective acting schools is strongly evoked.

This group of students are all that are those remaining in the  elite program. The dark hints of savagery in the process are present from the start. Final year students focus on The Tragedies – following on from Third Year focused on The  Comedies – a Midsummer Night’s Dream production with Oliver and James as Demetrius and Lysander clad only in striped boxers and undershirts.

Their unfolding school year is effectively sketched.

The acting classes for the year begin with a ritualistic personalised purging interrogation in acting class leading to revelation and self discovery at the hands of Gwendolyn. How many times do we read accounts of acting schools setting out to break down and then re-build individuals. In so many acting school approaches this sort of blood sport is mandatory. Cathartic and cleansing and cruel. Questionable.

The text study class is full of fusty philosophy and dusty epithets. The first combat class gives a sound description of the business of the illusions of stage fighting – setting up for later as the rules of the game are disrupted when things get out of hand. The ordinariness of observations such as “being Monday, we all lined up to be weighed”, touch on the unspoken assumed practices of this sort of training.

Productions provide major plot points in the mystery and there are also well-drawn examples of creative challenges for acting students. Twice in the plot development, students are set “secret assignments”. For Halloween, each of the main characters are given roles from the Scottish Play and the instruction to learn the lines and talk to no one else about their role. On the night, they are told to turn up to the lake side with their provided costume and, without any rehearsal, play their given roles. This impromptu and high risk task is an adrenaline rush, calling on skill and trust. Oliver is assigned to play Banquo. The tensions revealed in the exercise set in motion significant plot developments. 

The second example of this is when the students secret assignment involves Romeo and Juliet for the Christmas Masque Ball. Oliver here plays Benvolio, reinforcing his status as the sidekick mate, at the edge of the main action. Passions unfold and swirl around him yet provide him with insight into his growing power as an actor. 

Major plot developments are embedded in two productions: Julius Caesar and King Lear. 

Another major feature of the writing is the frequent resort to the characters quoting from the wide Shakespearean cannon at apposite moments in their lives. As tempting as it is to skim them, each quotation is apt and pertinent to the character development. And serve as reminders us of how annoyingly obsessive and insular the lives of actors in training can be. They converse in their own language (borrowed language!) to the exclusion of all others. The quotations are wide ranging – and are a good primer for “best bits of the Bard”.

There is a deep wisdom put into the mouths of the characters. 

Do you blame Shakespeare for any of it?

I blame him for all of it.

It’s hard to put into words. We spent four years – and most of us years before that – immersed in Shakespeare. Submerged. Here we could indulge our collective obsession. We spoke at a second language, conversed in poetry and lost touch with reality a little.

Well that’s misleading. Shakespeare is real, but his characters live in a world of real extremes. They swing from ecstasy to anguish, love to hate, wonder to terror. It’s not melodrama, though, they’re not exaggerating. Every moment is crucial.

A good Shakespearean actor – a good actor of any stripe really – does not just say words he feels them. We filled all the passions of the characters we played as if they were our own. But the characters emotions don’t cancel out the actors – instead you feel both at once. Imagine having all your thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feel feelings of a whole other person. It can be hard, sometimes, just sort out which is which.

Our shear capacity for feeling got to be so unwieldy that we staggered untruths, like Atlas with the weight of the world.

The thing about Shakespeare is, he’s so eloquent … He speaks the unspeakable. He turns grief into triumph and rapture and rage into words, into something we can understand. He renders the whole mystery of humanity comprehensible.You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough. (p. 248)

It’s important not to read too much into all of this. As I said the start – never forget that this is a mystery novel. It is designed to thrill and charm us. Yet, there is also something to tell us about acting schools. The small interchanges are revealing. (Often the text is laid out like a play script)

Meredith: “Welcome to our art school. It’s like Gwendolyn always says, “when you enter the theatre there are three things you must leave at the door: dignity, modesty, and personal space.

Philippa: I thought it was dignity, modesty, and personal pride.

Oliver: She told me dignity, modesty, and self-doubt.

All three of us were silent from moment before Philippa said Well this explains a lot.

Do you suppose she had three different things for every student she talks to me? Oliver asked. (p. 261)

Through the whole novel there is a melancholic recognition of Hamlet’s words:

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow." 

Yes, I did enjoy the mystery. I also enjoyed the portrait of the acting school and the people who live there. 

Is this a fair portrayal? 

I open our discussion to stimulate the debate.

Currently, there is turmoil in many of the known institutions – acting schools amongst them. It is reasonable, in these times, to question the practices of some, maybe all, drama schools. What lies behind the seductive images of Lotus Eaters and sirens? Why are some drama schools churning and turning themselves inside out over casting, choices of texts and practice? It is important to remember that there is a climate of disruption in the wider academy that has found its way into acting schools. 

What could be the way forward for these troubled spaces?   

Oh, and,  who killed the actor? It’s a mystery. Or, tongue in cheek, to quote from Shakespeare in Love :

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Bibliography

Madden, J. (Writer). (1998). Shakespeare in Love. In. United Kingdom: Universal Pictures, Miramax, and The Bedford Falls Company.

Rio, M. L. (2017). If We Were Villains. New York, NY: Flatiron Books.

Drama Tuesday - A Muse of Fire … 1991

 How our schools are being transformed by "the brightest heaven of invention"

Not so long ago,. there was little room in the school curriculum for drama and theatre studies apart from the occasional enthusiastic rendering of the "school play". In rosy hazy memory, the "school play” was a major occasion on the school calendar - triumphs of chaos and art wrought from the temperament of the teacher/ director. the nervous energy of young performers, the long suffering patience of school administrators and the fond forbearance of parents. Whatever the critical response to these occasions might have been, it is worth noting that often for those involved, the experience was remembered long after other subject content has been forgotten.

As the educational framework of our schools has expanded, drama and theatre studies have found a place as a subject discipline in their own right. Students in our schools have on offer a range of drama and theatre experiences.

In the early years of schooling, when students take part in creative play, they are using part of the language of drama. Through their experiences of make believe and pretending they are exploring different roles. A group of pre-school students at the dress up box or pretending to be a dragon with roaring noise and faces contorted are acting out roles beyond their own lives. Sometimes such games and creative play is formalised into a performance for someone else, an audience, but mostly the focus of this play is on the enjoyment of the moment for the particular students involved. The importance of these early experiences in creative play is now widely recognised; capacity for risk taking, for lateral thinking, for imaginative exploration are just some of the important life skills that are developed in these early games.

As students in our schools progress, there are increasing opportunities for them to develop a broader understanding of drama. Other areas of the curriculum such as understanding society can be explored through role playing and simulation games. Language can be developed through a love of words, exploring their textures and character. An understanding of changing physical development can be explored through movement, mime and characterisation work. The are few bounds for imaginative teachers using drama as a tool for learning content material, and as a means of developing student awareness of themselves and their own development. Increasingly, students in primary school have the opportunity of performing for an audience: sometimes a small performance to another group of students in the class, or an assembly item or an end of year concert or a performance for the people at the local Senior Citizens Centre are all ways of developing in students a sense of self confidence, of working in a group, and enjoying acting in roles.

In the secondary school, courses in drama and theatre are offered at a more formal level. In the Unit Curriculum students can explore improvised drama (plays without pre-written scripts). mime and movement. developing self-devised performance pieces. Gradually the focus of their studies takes them beyond drama as a tool for self development and exploration of the aspects of theatre and performance. The technical aspects of theatre, developing the voice, understanding something of the history of theatre and its place in society. In the post compulsory years of schooling students can take a more specialised course in theatre which broadens their understanding of the place of theatre and drama in the cultural life of our society. Further opportunities for performance develop self-confidence, commitment. self-image and group interaction skills. In the Senior Secondary we have both ATAR and General courses in Drama for the WACE the Western Australian Certificate of Education. (ATAR. An Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) represents your rank amongst all the other year 12s in Western Australia.)

Naturally, there are links to life beyond school. Some students take further studies at a tertiary level or enter the professional theatre; some develop a love for theatre as a form of entertainment and argument; some others use the techniques of rehearsal and visualisation developed in drama and theatre studies in a wide variety of other careers. It is safe to claim that ( although they mightn’t always realise it ) all students who have been involved in drama and theatre are enriched in ways that they barely dream of.

In all recorded societies there have been forms of drama and theatre. Some people argue that the health of a society is reflected in its capacity for reflecting and exploring the values and concerns through this imaginative world. As Hamlet in the play by Shakespeare reminds us

" ... the purpose of playing ... is to hold ... 

the mirror up to nature ..."

---

Scenes from around the state

South Hedland

In one end of a teaching block, cocooned from the searing heat outside, a class of Year 5 students are telling their version of the story of the dragon and the damsel in distress. An aboriginal boy with an infectious smile has dressed as the dragon's mother and is berating the dragon for being " ... so mean to the poor girl. .. " and for" … getting dragons a bad name ... " He concludes" ... is it any wonder that we are almost:-extinct ... ". Toe rest of the students in the class are laughing and teacher Rhonda Brentnall is enjoying his performance. These students are one step beyond playing "dress ups" and "pretending" ¢ they are learning to shape a performance for the enjoyment of others listening.

Belmay Primary School

A circus is in progress - not a traditional circus under tent with lions and high flying aerialists under the Sole Brothers' banner, but a group of students from a primary school are making their own circus. Working for five weeks with Reg Bolton from Suitcase Circus this group of students have discovered in themselves a wealth of talent that they barely suspected existed. Stilt walkers, acrobats, clowns, unicyclists and performers of all kinds have shaped a circus where before there was nothing but the idea. Under the guidance of teacher, Graham Baxter and with the help of tutors such as Reg, these students have worked as a team to make a satisfying and enjoyable performance.

Geraldton

At the local shopping centre students from Standing Room Only the performing group from John Willcock Senior High, have drawn a crowd of shoppers to them with their short impact drama with a road safety message. Later that same group of students will take their play oto a receptive audience at the Senior Citizen's village. Here drama is being used to communicate a health message and is part of a joint project undertaken with the local office of the Department of Health.

Fremantle

For many years now, John Curtin Senior High School has had a reputation as centre for students specially gifted in theatre. Students from this program have distinguished themselves through making memorable theatre. 1991 is an important year - a breakthrough

What would we report from around the state in 2021?

Foreman Funnies - Pranks

The ‘Last Night Prank’ is a staple of repertory theatre. You read about them often enough. Robin Pascoe has some doozies he might share one day (from the Merredin Rep Club).

I witnessed a couple in the Albany Light Opera Company: Mikado – Koko’s ‘little list’. The actor in the role never learnt it, always read it. On the last night, the name of a local celebrity was added. The actor read it flawlessly, the chorus broke up. 

In Puss in Boots, one character was to present the queen with a small bush. He’d been working on his farm that afternoon and brought in a twenty-foot sapling. (How did he get it upstairs and backstage?) The ‘bush’ stretched from one side of the stage to the other. 

There was a few that happened in school productions once I started teaching Drama. 

In Dust in the Air, one character sat on a throne for the entire second act. Just before lights up, someone slipped a packet of frozen peas onto the seat.

In our Cyrano, the character of ‘Chris’ had to read a letter on stage. Sitting in the balcony I noticed cast members in the wings watching intently. I looked at Chris as he opened the letter. “Don’t read it!” I thought. He knew the lines. 

He read it. And cracked up. Thankfully he didn’t read it aloud.

After The Mysteries, where a disgruntled crew member took the Third Shepherd’s gift of a tennis ball for the baby Jesus, and the cast member tearfully substituted an apple, I was adamant that there would be no more pranks in my productions. 

From then on I always advised cast members to check any hand props, especially folded paper before going on stage. I was guilty of a sort of prank in one show where two girls had to take a paper bag with two cream buns onstage and eat them. 

The final night I replaced one bun with a matchstick – layers of puff pastry, jam, and cream. They checked their prop before entering. Onstage, the inevitable happened. The matchstick exploded. The second girl ad-libbed, “You’re such a pig, Monica.” 

I cracked up backstage. 

But I don’t believe it is fair to young performers to put them in the situation where they may be embarrassed by someone else.

Yes, audiences love those obvious stuff-ups on stage. But in the end, I want my students, my young performers to be able to do their very best, and to do justice to the script…

Drama Tuesday - Drama Teaching in action in the Media

Part of my ongoing quest is to find examples of drama teaching happening – in novels, stories, television and films. In Generazione 56K – a show on Netflix produced in Italy – one of the secondary characters runs a drama group for underprivileged young people. We see scenes of him working with them on a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are scenes of warming up with vocal exercises; behind the scenes teen romance between actors playing Titania and Bottom; and, the obnoxiously sweet kid whose answer to everything is to give the finger. and the production that we see scenes from sends the audience into polite slumbers.

Yes, its’ a secondary story and likely to be of interest in passing. But it’s yet another example of contemporary interest in drama teaching. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13524842/mediaviewer/rm51640577/ 

Have you found any more examples to add to the collection?

Music Monday - Adrian Adam Maydwell Music Archive

Back in May I wrote about this beautiful collection of choral music. I saw Tony Maydwell again over the weekend and he told me that the collection has now grown to over 500 works! This is such a generous gift to the worldwide choral music community and so I decided to repost the original for any of you who may have missed it first time around:

Perth based harpist, choral director, musicologist and collector and researcher of all choral things Renaissance, Baroque and Bolivian, Anthony (Tony) Maydwell, has set up a collection of works in memory of his son Adrian, also a musician and singer, who tragically lost his life in a road accident.

There are over 170 works already uploaded and eventually there will be over a thousand.

All are available for free with the only proviso being that appropriate attribution is given in performance. 

This is an incredible gesture from Anthony Maydwell and one which will benefit generations of musicians who love to play and sing this music. Tony writes in a facebook post: 

Adrian loved this repertoire and had opportunity to sing a great deal of it during his lifetime. Faith and I hope this will in a small way keep his memory alive for those who knew him and further an appreciation for the rich experience that can be had from singing and listening to this beautiful music.

Please share details of the site with musician friends:

https://aamma.co

Drama Tuesday - The Drama Teaching Space

Spaces of learning/Spaces of Performance

 We take for granted that students understand how the elements of Space and Time are crucial building blocks for making drama. But we usually think of this in terms of the performance spaces we use – our theatres and performance venues. In this post I shift our thinking to consider that every drama room – whether it’s a purpose built space or a classroom rearranged - in the same terms as we do in making drama: the physical space,, the social space and the imagined emotional space. 

The space of performance is essentially an interaction between participants who are performers and participants who are audience. We can think of the drama teaching space as the interaction between participants – students and teacher – and the physical, social and imagined emotional space. 

I am thinking about this having read an interesting post from TheatreFolk in Canada and a new publication they have put out called Return, restore, rebound: Post-Pandemic Resource.. In that post they discuss the challenges of being a teacher who has been teaching online and remotely as they return to their physical classrooms. (https://www.theatrefolk.com/products/return-restore-rebound-post-pandemic-resource) . In particular, they set out to support the beginning teacher who is moving into the physical space of teaching for the first time after their graduation – a delayed taking up of a teaching position because of the Pandemic. 

In that resource, they pose useful questions for teachers – fresh to the space or returning to the space – reflecting on the potential of the teaching space. The physical strengths and limits as well emotional reactions to being in the space. The potential for doing things differently. 

In my work with drama teacher education students I include a module on thinking about setting our “perfect” drama teaching space (as part of a workshop on Managing Drama Teaching). At one level there is no “perfect” drama teaching space – and at another level the “perfect teaching space” is the one you are in the process of making. It is always in a state of becoming.

There are some important principles though: be organised. I have lost track of where this image comes from – the antiquated dimmer board takes it back somewhere into the dim dark past. But the notion of managing the space is important. 

The second image was something I drew after visiting a successful teacher’s space. Christina is thoroughly organised. For example, students know that if they missed a class, the can always go into the shelf where notes from each workshop are kept and find what they missed. 

The other thing about this teacher’s work, is that each student had their own portfolio which they added to systematically with each lesson. This provided both organisation of accumulating learning, it also made explicit metacognitive processes of articulating learning through writing and journal entries. (Of course, nowadays, we might not have a physical portfolio but keep a digital one). There is more to teaching drama than being able to lead a process drama. 

If you work in most secondary schools in Western Australia there is likely to be a purpose built Performing Arts Centre. They vary but are basically a workshop space of about 14 metres by 114  metres with associated dressing room/green room (that is also another teaching space). They are equipped with lighting bars and lights, sound systems. Most are carpeted. They are in. effect black box theatres. But if you are the drama teacher, most likely the only drama teacher in the school, you will wind up being responsible for a facility that costs over a million dollars to build and a school community that don’t quite understand the complexity of being responsible for it. There is the technical side – sound and lighting that requires specialised knowledge. There is the security side where there is equipment that is highly desirable that can be easily stolen or misappropriated. There is the maintenance and air conditioning and all the Occupational Health and Safety requirements when it comes to audiences and not having students push each other around on the scaffolding for the lighting. 

That’s a huge amount of financial and professional responsibility for a beginning teacher. And, sadly, so little time in a teacher education course to provide the necessary background for managing. Part of the work of drama teachers is to manage their teaching and learning space.

What are the necessary knowledge and skills to step into the drama teaching and learning space? What do you need to know to teach drama – apart from a knowledge about the art form itself?