Curriculum & Lesson Planning

A class showcase is a great way to share and celebrate what your class has learned in drama class. It gives your students the opportunity to demonstrate the skills they have acquired and put those...

So, your school is mounting a production this year? Fantastic! Mounting a school production is a wonderful learning opportunity for students and staff alike. It’s also a big challenge. Teachers:...

“Cross-curricular” is a huge buzz word. We’ve talked previously about how you can explore other subjects through drama, but what about drama in other classes? We recorded a podcast with two...

The phrase “a picture tells a thousand words” is pretty well-worn, yet the concept has proven true time and time again. Look at any picture that captures a moment in action – the words needed to...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re hyperaware of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton, which has won Tony Awards, a Grammy, the Pulitzer Prize, and the accolades of everyone from...

Do you include student directing in your program or are you thinking about introducing it this year? Tfolk playwright Clint Snyder reveals some tips for student directors. Directing can be...

Q&A with Pilar OrtiLindsay Price talked with Pilar Orti, author of Your Handy Companion to Devising and Physical Theatre, about her experiences with devising in the drama classroom. Here are some...

For some of you, school has already started. For others, that first day is looming right around the corner. Either way, it’s easy to get tossed into the whirlwind that is the beginning of the...

We were lucky enough to speak with two teachers at Northwest Middle School in Flowood, MS – Emily Wright and Genifer Freeman – about how the entire school (even the Principal) got involved in a...

We’re always asking students to reflect. It’s almost like a knee-jerk reaction. Reflect on that exercise! Reflect on group work! Reflect on the unit! Here’s a rubric just for reflections! But how...

Large drama classes can be lots of fun – they are often noisy, but full of energy and excitement, and the time absolutely flies by. But there are challenges too – with larger classes, it can be...

If you study theatre history, it is a given that Shakespeare will make an appearance. But it’s not a given that you will hit upon 17th Century France and the works of Molière. What was theatre like...

If you’re going to study theatre history, Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Era are two of the most fascinating topics to study. But time and time again students (and teachers) resist against...

Theatre History is a necessary unit in any drama curriculum. To understand where we are, we have to explore where we’ve been. For example, to understand the role of the actor, it’s important to...

If you are working on a play or musical with a large ensemble, those actors can sometimes feel “less than” the named characters or the leads. I’m just in the ensemble. I don’t matter. You want to...

“Body language accounts for 60% of our understanding of emotions, our reception of subliminal messages and our grasp of relationships.” - Ron Cameron-Lewis, Acting Skills for Life Student actors...

A character’s physicality is part of the actor’s toolkit. Physicality, along with voice and imagination, helps to tell a story, no matter if you’re doing a mime, tableau, monologue, or scene. The...

If you want your characters to be three dimensional, you have to consider their voice. What words do they choose? What’s the structure of their language? How do they communicate? A character...