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 - Generosity of Spirit

Don't come to my production if you there to point score, to redirect it or to criticise it unreasoningly.

Come to enjoy, to share, to discover along with us the joy and rough magic of theatre, to understand why we are performing, to share what we are saying ( or trying to say!)

Come to share our sense of achievement, to understand what it is we can now do as a result of the process of discovery we have explored.

I am not going to apologise or pretend that it maybe couldn't ( and shouldn't ) be better. I can be critical as the next person (honest!) I try to have a real sense of what should be on the stage - but I also know that in schools we are working with theatre in an educational context - the learning is as important ( perhaps even more important ) than the production.

Having said that I don't advocate using that thinking as an easy excuse or escape clause. (My old mother, ever a realist, taught me to never apologise for what might have been or to blame someone else, but to cop it sweet whatever happens.)

There can be a lack of generosity of spirit in the barely suppressed commentary of carping criticism I sometimes overhear. This is more than just sad (or hurtful), It damages and diminishes the rest of us.

They sometimes say that the theatre is the natural resort of bitches but I question whether that ought to be the case in theatre in educational settings. If we saw or heard our students rubbishing other performers, we would do something about it, wouldn’t we! Surely we wouldn't join in. ( Which isn't to say that the application of critical frameworks as part of understanding the role of the critic isn’t part of the theatre going experience - but that is something different from the mood of picky and personalised knifery that sometimes seems to pervade the audience of our peers. )

I know that it is easier to laugh at something than to think about it; it is easier to wreck rather than to feel; it is easier to snigger than to understand. If theatre is truly to move us - and move us in more than a simple cathartic burst of emotion - to make us think and feel and, therefore, to change, then we cannot afford to rely on the easy response, to use a quick laugh at someone else’s expense as a substitute for a genuine reaction. Are we so insecure about our own work and abilities that we have to prove our worth at the expense of someone else’s work?

When I go to see someone else’s production, I try to see the production in its context. I try to see its successes and strengths. I try to find something positive to say. I try to base any comments that I make on the production - particularly in discussion with my students - focus on the specific, avoiding the personal or the cheap Jibe. I aim to make my comments balanced, clear and thoughtful. And the amazing thing I have discovered, is that it isn't so difficult to take this world view because often what I see when young people perform is wonderful, amazing and awe inspiring. so it is not effort to focus on the positive.

I am not claiming to be some plaster saint - or to say that sometimes I am not tempted to think a few cheap and nasty thoughts. But I am saying that I have learnt to bite my tongue when the carping starts. And I think we all should do that.

So, when you come to my production, come knowing what to expect. It will be the best that I can do with the talent and the resources that I have at the moment. We have set out to make a production which is the best that we can achieve at this moment in time. We are what we are. Whatever our deficiencies, we don't excuse them but then we don’t let them diminish our sense of achievement.

Drama Tuesday - A Challenge for Drama Teachers

 In conversation before the show with Mitch, the Principal, an interesting question came up. What are the equivalent performance challenges for the drama students? 

This is a really important question. 

While we may want all our students to experience the “high” repertoire – the most challenging and thought provoking repertoire, are those scripted drama choices age appropriate? What valuable learning would year 8 and 9 students find in the set texts lists of Year 11 and 12. Consider the example of set texts for Year 12 below; even with that repertoire there are legitimate interrogations (see discussion in Lambert, Wright, Currie, & Pascoe, 2016) ). 

What will we have our Years 8 and 9 drama students perform?

That’s my challenge. 

• Where are the plays that are age appropriate have sufficiently large casts with solid acting challenges?

• Where are the plays with brand recognition for parents?

• How do we find plays that will also be accessible to younger audiences that will be the next generation of students for John Curtin.

• What would or could be workable repertoire for Years 8 and 9? And not be twee or unchallenging.

There’s a danger of trying to find the watered down classics. That’s not a solution. There’s a whole publishing industry based on inconsequential and trivialised scripts for so-called younger people.

But what will our students perform? And not every production needs to be from the high repertoire. There’s a place for popular plays to be included in the list.

Some suggestions to start the conversation

One (perhaps outrageous) idea could be the adaptations of Dickens such as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. 

Before you think I am off my rocker because it’s a monumental work running for 8.5 hours, played usually over two nights. Think about it though. 

The scope of and style of this version presents a challenge. Played on open stage, with the ensemble cast playing multiple roles and moving rapidly from scene to scene, in the right director’s hands, this could be suitably challenging. 

There are multiple roles. You could even have one cast (and director) do Part 1. Another Part 2. 

There is a recognition factor. 

There is scope and ambition. 

Or you could do others last in a similar mould. Edgar has also a version of Christmas Carol.

The actor who played Nicholas Nickleby had an illustrious career as a director and he collaborated on another favourite of mine: Peter and the Starcatcher. 

Like the RSC production this adaptation of a 2004 novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, adapted for the stage by Rick Elice is open-ended and age appropriate. 

An ensemble of actors enters a bare stage. After some bickering, they welcome the audience to the world of the play and describe what's in store: flying, dreaming, adventure and growing up. It is wildly exciting and open ended with scope for imagination. 

What other ensemble shows could work?

I hesitate to suggest The Grapes of Wrath because of some of the materials but the version by Frank Galati could work. Originated at Steppenwolf in Chicago and using innovative open staging, the production has scope and vision. There are scenes that may be a bridge too far for schools, though. 

Then there’s plays like The Children’s Crusade and The mask of Agamemnon or Gunslinger shows of that ilk that were popular in the 1980s (and produced by the WA Youth Theatre Company. 

More contemporary, ATYP. –Australian Theatre for Young People – Also offer some good scripts for younger actors. (https://atypondemand.com.au) But they don’t have the cachet if established scripts and productions. 

But what are your suggestions for plays that will work for Year 8 and 9 students?

Example of set texts from the Western Australian ATAR Drama course (2021). Which of these would be suitable for performance by Years 8 and 9?

Scripts 

Edgar, D. (1992) The life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Dramatists Play Service, New York, N.Y.

Elice, R. , 2012, Peter and the Starcatcher: The Annotated Script of the Broadway Play, Disney Editions ISBN13: 9781423174059

Galati, F (1995) John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Eichosha. 9784268002266

Bibliography

Lambert, K., Wright, P. R., Currie, J., & Pascoe, R. (2016). Performativity and creativity in senior secondary drama classrooms. NJ Drama Australia Journal, 40(1), 15-26. 

Drama Tuesday - A Cyrano for the Times

“Take it, and turn to facts my fantasies.”

― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

An antipodean and retro Cyrano with high school kids

Armadale SHS Production 1986

Airing on SBS this week is a delightful recent French comedy film Cyrano My Love (In French released as Edmond).

A fanciful tale of Edmond Rostand “writing” Cyrano in a madcap few days with inspiration gleaned from his actor friend’s love for a costumier; a over the hill actor desperate for a leading role; a chaotic and comedic backstage account of the writing and staging of the play before going on to be a significant success with over 20,000 productions in the 20th Century alone. 

You can take the “historical accuracy” with the pre-requisite pinch of salt. But it doesn’t make it any the less funny. The scene where Edmond improvises (in verse) the famous “nose speech, drawing images and metaphors out of thin air in a backstage walk is delightfully inventive. If you are in anyway familiar with the play (or its many adaptations like the limp Roxanne with Steve Martin) then there are resonances to be milked.

This was a play that celebrated the very theatricality of theatre – the long tradition of the playing within the play. 

But having watched it (when I probably should have been tucked up in bed) I was transported to the production that John Foreman and I did at Armadale Senior High in 1986. 

Who on earth would have thought that it was a good idea to tackle this High Romance from the French Belle Epoch? People must have thought that we had rocks in our head to even contemplate it. But we did it. 

More than that we had the reckless and rash notion of re-shaping the play into a 1960’s setting! And that we would intersperse rock songs throughout (to move the whole 5 act structure along at a cracking pace).

It was an act of hubris (of the kind that drama teachers are so fond of).

But… it did work.

And the students did respond to the text and built their own connections. 

The closing scene with the mortally wounded Cyrano finally revealing his true love for Roxanne was introduced by the melancholy of the Don McLean song American Pie

Something touched me deep inside

The day the music died

Not surprisingly, I am fascinated by these plays about plays. 

I return (as a teacher) to sharing Stage Beauty about the transition point in Restoration Theatre when women were able to take roles on stage. (Directed by Richard Eyre. The screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher is based on his play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which was inspired by references to 17th-century actor Edward Kynaston made in the detailed private diary kept by Samuel Pepys.

Of course, there is Shakespeare in Love  with all of Tom Stoppard’s wit.

“- 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.”

“Cyrano, My Love,” was written and directed by Alexis Michalik, adapting his own acclaimed play,

Like any high school production there were rough edges and some bumpier performances, but what this production did was to open the doors to a kind of theatre that was not harsh realism or Brechtian alienation. It opened minds to theatre seen through the lenses of time and continuity. It opened hearts to how music swells dramatic action. 

It’s a long time since that production – and those actors are now out there in the world with fading memories. The disintegrating paper scripts sit on my shelves slowing dissolving into dust (and who knows where the disc is – or if there is any technology that can possibly read it). But I wanted to remind us as drama teachers that sometimes we need to take bold and huge risks and to step out into the vast planes of imagined possibilities. Too often now I see drama in schools shuttering down; what will maximise the ATAR score thinking. It’s not easy to be bold. It’s risky business to push the boundaries. When it works, it’s worth it.

The first page of the script evokes the vaulting ambition of our production.

Now all I have to do is find the images from the production. 

Drama Thursday - Undecided

Undecided

Fringe Show 27 January 2021

We are so used to the message to turn off your mobile phones being intoned as we enter the theatre, it is refreshing to enter the Rehearsal Room at the State Theatre Centre, to be told Turn on your phones and login to the address on the screen. 

Undecided polls the audience with questions throughout the 60 minutes of the show and the audience “decides” what happens next (well, within the imposed limits, they decide!). 

This is a cute premise on which to stage a Fringe show. 

The audience (after a preliminary warm up about voting for mint or gum) decide whether the deliberately ambiguously named Jamie and Sam are to be played by male or female actors. And so the action unfolds. 

The plot is thin though clothed in a smear of existential angst.

Of course, there are precedents for audience deciding the outcome of a play. The Mystery of Edwin Drood uses this device – though there there are really only three possibilities and endings in that show. And given the unfinished nature of Dickens’ last work, the sense of unfinished business and different possibilities works – kind of. This had more risk to it. 

Whether this theatrical device could be sustained in this play beyond the 60 minutes playing time is worth considering. Probably  and possibly not. 

The performances are lively and energetic. Imagine the task of carrying in your head the different alternative texts for the Sam and Jamie roles. The ensemble of four are well matched. The voices are clear and the sense of style is spot on appropriate. They work hard and are animated, giving the audience a good sense of fun. 

Note to Jamie (male) watch tendency to subconscious hair flicking. You need an eagle eye and terrifying director (I am reminded of Ruth Osborne from CDC and the Youth Theatre Company in her notes about this issue. Hair flicking that carries you out of role and character is just plain distracting for audiences)

The music moves along at a fair clip and has plenty of bounce and oomph. If you have the vague sense of recognising musical memes, don’t be surprised. There is a skill in writing musical parodies. 

One of my pet hates in theatre are poor sight lines. We all know how difficult it is to find venues during Fringe (even in COVID times). But, I really don’t like it when the action disappears amongst the shoulders of the people in the seats in front of me. The problem is easy to fix – if the audience can’t see, why don’t you fix it. 

The world of drama is changing faster than we might recognise.

For example, we are used to being told to silence our phones in theatres (and not to take calls during the show). Of course, this reverential atmosphere has not always been the case. According to reports from the past, the audiences in theatres were often boisterous and disrespectful – or even paying attention to the action on the stage.

What else is changing?

Are our definitions of drama and theatre and performance changing?

Is that useful or helpful?

Fringe shows open doors to many different forms of drama and theatre and performance. 

It is healthy that there is an open-ended and inclusive approach. Yet, the old saying anything goes may not be helpful. 

Innovation drives practice. 

What are the innovations in drama practice that we should be paying attention to?

How is technology changing our understanding of drama and theatre?

It is not just the current pandemic that is causing re-thinking of our perceptions of drama and theatre. 

There are changed expectations about the type of performance, the role of cause and effect narratives, relationships between audience and actors.The title of the Fringe show was Undecided and this is perhaps indicative of a need to rethink our previously held assumptions. 

About this event

We've all been there: you're watching a musical and it's not going the way you want. Maybe a character is annoying you, or a plot line seems unnecessary. Well, now the power is in your hands! UNDECIDED is a choose-your-own-adventure musical where the audience vote on which direction the story takes next!

A live pianist and eager cast will be faced with the challenge of creating a totally different experience every night, starting with a big decision; will the first character - Jaime - be played by a woman or a man? Could this be the ultimate in audience satisfaction? The choice (and the blame) is yours!

UNDECIDED is a new musical adventure written and directed by John McPherson (Lawyers and Other Communicable Diseases, Greenwicks!) and co-written by James Palm (Threshold).

Drama Tuesday - A Fools Project

Creating Performing Opportunities in Times of Lockdown

Lately I have been thinking about ways of generating drama projects for students in lockdown situations. My students need short scenes or plays that can be performed over digital platforms, if necessary, but which can also be rehearsed independently. There are many examples of compilation performances -  Two that I particularly like are based on Shakespeare also: Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1982). Shakespeare's Lovers: A Text for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, University of Southern Illinois. Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1986). Shakespeare's Women: A Playscript for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press.

I started by thinking about all of Shakespeare’s Fools. 

I conceptualised this project as a research and performance project. Students would need to research and write about the characters considered fools and their functions in the plays that included them. They would need to look at the research about the Shakespearean Fools. Then, they would identify a scene in which the Fool and others interact, make a suitable scene cutting, rehearse and perform it. Together as a whole class we would construct a devised project. This sounds like a sufficiently challenging and yet satisfying project. 

The Shakespearean fool is a recurring character type in his plays. These characters were most often common people who had the wit and skill to make fun of upper class people. Often seen as “comic relief” to the more serious aspects of a play, it is worth considering that the Fools in Shakespeare provide an emotional depth and contrast to the serious themes. By shifting from the distanced world of the drama to more domestic and familiar scenes, the complexity of the dramatic situation is heightened. 'That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.’ (Asimov 1978)

Jan Kott, in Shakespeare Our Contemporary ,

“The Fool does not follow any ideology. He rejects all appearances, of law, justice, moral order. He sees brute force, cruelty and lust. He has no illusions and does not seek consolation in the existence of natural or supernatural order, which provides for the punishment of evil and the reward of good. Lear, insisting on his fictitious majesty, seems ridiculous to him. All the more ridiculous because he does not see how ridiculous he is. But the Fool does not desert his ridiculous, degraded king, and accompanies him on his way to madness. The Fool knows that the only true madness is to recognise this world as rational.”

From a BBC April Fool’s Day Report:

Shakespeare loved a fool and not just on 1 April. He used them in most of his well-known plays, but who would their equivalents be today?

It was never about bright clothes, eccentric hats and slippers with bells on them. Shakespeare’s fools were the stand-ups of their day and liked to expose the vain, mock the pompous and deliver a few home truths - however uncomfortable that might be for those on the receiving end.

"Shakespearean fools, like stand-ups today, had a licence to say almost anything," says Dr Oliver Double, who teaches drama at the University of Kent and specialises in comedy. "It was an exalted position."(Winterman 1 April 2012)

In his book The Guizer Alan Garner (1975)tells us,

If we take the elements from which our emotions are built and give them separate names, such as Mother, Her, Father, King, Child, Queen, the element that I think marks us most is that or Fool, It is where our humanity lies.

The Fool is full of contradictions, as we are. He is at once creator and destroyer, bringer or help and harm. Through his mistakes we learn how to do things properly. He is the shadow that shapes the light. 

Putting on the Motley. 

The costume and props of the Fool were – according to reports of the times – standardised. A patchwork and ragged coat, sometimes with bells hung on it. Breeches of different coloured legs and a mono like hood and cloak decorated with animal body parts such as donkey’s ears and rooster heads. The prop was a stick decorated with a doll head or a fool. A pouch filled with powders, sand, peas or air filled out the outfit. 

Some useful resources

The No Sweat Shakespeare Blog: The Ultimate Guide To Shakespeare’s Fools

https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/ultimate-guide-shakespeares-fools/

The British Library Shakespeare’s Fools

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/shakespeares-fools

OUP Shakespeare’s clowns and fools [infographic]

 https://blog.oup.com/2016/09/shakespeare-clowns-fools-infographic/ 

But there are many more. 

Bibliography

Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1982). Shakespeare's Lovers: A Text for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Univsersity or Southern Illinois.

Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1986). Shakespeare's Women: A Playscript for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press.

Asimov, I. (1978). Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare,Vols.1-2. New York, Gramercy Books.

Garner, A. (1975). The Guizer. London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd/William Collins Sons and Co Ltd.

Kott, J. (1964). Shakespeare: Our contemporary. Garden City, N.Y, Doubleday.

Winterman, D. (1 April 2012). "Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents."

Music Monday - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on zoom.

On Saturday evening I drove into WAAPA at Edith Cowan University to see a production on zoom of the musical Spelling Bee, performed by Diploma of Music Theatre students under the direction of creatives Nicole Stinton (director and co-ordinator of the Diploma course), Tim How (musical director) and Jayne Smeulders (choreography). 

 I was curious to see this production. Very unusually, the audience were to gather in a lecture theatre on campus while the performers remained at home, ready to perform live over zoom. Across Perth, cast members farewelled their parents and families as the latter prepared to drive to WAAPA, and then the performers themselves settled in front of their laptops at home, ready to perform. Strange times indeed.

I confess that I was hoping that this might be the last zoom performance I would watch for the foreseeable future. Over the past few weeks I have seen several plays on this platform and although each had its merits, it was always hard to ignore the unfavourable comparison with a live performance. Spelling Bee would certainly be different in the sense that the performance was to be largely live – with some pre-recorded backup vocals and a couple of film sequences.

In the lecture theatre the atmosphere was that of excited curiosity – how was this going to work?

We were instructed to feel comfortable applauding after songs -although the performers at home wouldn’t hear us, the creative team had allowed for applause breaks.

And so the show started. 

It was certainly more comfortable to watch on a large screen rather than home laptop. That was my first observation.

The premise for this production was ‘that due to Covid 19, the annual spelling bee had been forced online. The rules would be the same as usual, with one additional rule being that spellers must have both hands visible on screen as they spelled.’

In this production the four audience members in the original script became additional characters – the exchange student from Australia who had become stranded in the USA due to the pandemic, one of the speller’s Dads, and so on.

Solo songs were performed to backing tracks played in the singer’s own space. Back-up vocals had been pre-recorded. 

The rehearsal process had clearly taken care and time with playing to the camera and to finding visual and aural clarity in dialogue between characters. There was a strong and vibrant energy in this performance -and a clear sense of ownership of and commitment to the production. There was some vocal pushing (perhaps because it was the final show) but there were also many memorable moments – one was the Dan Schwartz character who spent the performance cooking in his own kitchen, while manning the bell in the spelling bee.  A convincing variation on how it is usually played. An unscripted (I think) but hilarious moment was when the family pet dog started barking. Even on the zoom platform, live performance throws up the unexpected!

At the end of the show the audience were clearly delighted with what they had experienced.  I enjoyed every moment.

I spoke with Nicole Stinton afterwards and confirmed that she had chosen the musical before Covid 19 struck. It is hard to imagine a musical better suited to an online production.

I imagine that there will be many post-grad dissertations in the coming years about performing online during a pandemic. This production and its creatives would certainly have much of value to lend to the conversation.

Bravo to all.

Devising Performance through Process Drama

After a workshop in Zhuji at IDEA IDEC Regional Drama Education Conference, introducing participants to using process drama strategies to teach drama, I received an email from one of them: I understand how you might use process drama strategies as one-off activities or lessons. but how does that help me meet the expectations of my school and parents for a performance as a result of the drama classes?

What is Process Drama?

Process Drama is a method of teaching and learning drama where both the students and teacher are working in and out of role (definition from the Australian Curriculum: The Arts, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/the-arts/Glossary/?term=process+drama.

Process Drama is a term coined by John O’Toole, Cecily O’Neill and others to describe contemporary dramatic explorations – most often in an educational setting – based on extended connected improvisations and structured through a sense of theatre and drama structures and traditions.

Initiated through a powerful pre-text process drama, like improvisation, creates a “dramatic elsewhere”, a fictional world but one that is inhabited for insights, interpretations and understanding of participants rather than audiences.”

Excerpt From: Robin and Hannah Pascoe. “Drama and Theatre Key Terms and Concepts.” iBooks.

Why is it a powerful way of learning drama?

Process Drama is a way of helping students know and learn drama by participating in drama processes themselves – by embodying drama through engaging their thinking, emotions and physical selves. It is one powerful way of students learning in practical ways the Elements of Drama, the Principles of Story, the skills and processes of drama performance and production.

In Process Drama teachers and students use a range of drama learning and teaching strategies such as Role on the Wall, Hot seating, etc. They are tools, fundamental building blocks that help students understand how we can create, first of all, moments of drama. They then learn how to craft those moments into dramatic sentences and paragraphs and shape them into a devised performance involving scripting, rehearsing and sharing for an audience. You can find more about Drama Learning and Teaching Strategies in Learning Drama Teaching Drama (Pascoe and Pascoe 2014).

Devising using process drama is a more complex drama strategy. It is sometimes called Play Building.

In overview, a teacher can develop a term or semester long program involving:

You can find more about devising and play building in Building Plays Simple playbuilding techniques at work (Tarlington and Michaels 1995)

Bibliography

Pascoe, R. and H. Pascoe (2014). Drama and Theatre: Key Terms and Concepts (3rd Edition). Perth, StagePage.

Tarlington, C. and W. Michaels (1995). Building Plays Simple playbuilding techniques at work. Markham, Ontario, Canada, Pembroke Publishers/Heinemann.