Scenes

What is THE most important part of an actor’s job? To tell a story to an audience! No matter what, the audience needs to be able to experience what’s going on during the performance. Actors must play to the audience in order to get their story across. Sometimes it’s really useful for drama students to go back to the basics to practice the seemingly simple skills that they use all the time but occasionally neglect or forget. Here are three games to help students get back to the basics, and hone their skills on playing to an audience. To practice basic stage directions:Trapdoor First, review basic stage directions with your class: centre stage, downstage, upstage, stage right, stage left, and the corners (upstage left, upstage right, downstage left, downstage right). Remember: we walk DOWN towards the audience, UP away from the audience, and LEFT and RIGHT are from the actor’s perspective! Think of the classroom or stage as a grid with nine squares. If the students have never worked with stage directions before, you might want to put signs on the wall! To play Trapdoor, have students start at centre stage. One person (the teacher, director, or another leader) is the Caller. When the Caller yells out a stage direction (“Upstage Left!”), all actors must run to that area of the stage. Whoever runs to the wrong area or arrives there last is OUT! Why is the game called “Trapdoor”? If the Caller yells “Trapdoor,” everyone must lie flat on their bellies on the floor right where they are. (It’s not exactly what a trapdoor does, but it’s fun nevertheless, and gets everyone moving!) You can add tons of variations to this game: • Actor or staging positions (full front, full back, one quarter left/right, three quarters left/right). • Add some funny tableau/mime positions and actions. Some of my favourites include: • “Director’s coming!” (Students stand up straight like soldiers and salute) • “Paparazzi!” (Some students pose like models/celebrities while others pretend to take photographs–it doesn’t matter how many are posing vs. photographing.) • “Love scene!” (Students create melodramatic “love scene” poses—hands over hearts or over the brow, down on one knee, fainting away, etc.) • If you’re worried about students running in the classroom, you can use different ways of moving: tiptoe, glide, hop, crab walk, moonwalk, leap, etc. • Change where the “audience” is located. If you’re playing this game on a stage, pretend that the audience is at stage left! How does that change how you use stage directions? To practice cheating out (face the audience!):Upstage/Downstage Choose a short scene (one page long). Students divide into small groups and prepare the scene twice–once facing upstage, and once facing downstage. Have students partner up with another group and perform for them, or else perform in small groups in front of the rest of the class. An alternate version of this game is to perform the scene the exact same way twice. First, set the performance downstage, close to the audience. The second time, set the performance upstage, far away from the audience. Check out the sample scene in the PDF download! To practice basic stage principles/rules:Act It Out! This is a fun game to use if you have a bunch of basic stage rules or principles to learn. Divide students into small groups and give each group a rule to act out. Students can either act out the rule as written OR act out the opposite of the rule to show the rest of the class what not to do! For example, a rule might be “If you can see the audience, they can see you” or “Keep quiet while the director is giving notes.” Give the groups a time limit to figure out how they’ll perform the rule, and then have each group present their rule via a class performance. As each group performs, have the other groups guess what the rule is. Usually it is useful to talk about the guesses just as much as the actual rule! An alternate version of this game is for each group to prepare two scenes. First, a stage rule being broken or ignored and the consequences that occur. Second, the rule being followed, and the benefit to the actor and/or audience. Students can have fun by really exaggerating the scenarios and consequences that occur when rules are broken! For example, if the rule being performed is “Cheat out towards the audience,” the students might present a scene of two “actors” performing a scene facing away from the “audience” (another member of the group). The audience might comment on how they can’t see or hear the actors onstage clearly, then the actors might perform the scene again but cheating out. Have the “audience” give the actors a big round of applause since they could hear and see the performance.

One of the keys to Classroom Management is getting students to work well together. Group work is tricky if students don’t know one another. Why should I share something with this guy who doesn’t say two words in class? Exercise: Round RobinDownload a printable PDF of this Exercise including Character/Conflict sheets at the end of this post. This exercise encourages students to work together and to think quickly. Tell students that they have to have a unanimously agreed upon product at each stage of this exercise. Outline • There are two stages in this activity: Character and Conflict. • Each group will complete a task three times for each stage: 3 times for character, 3 times for conflict. • Each group will then select one character and one conflict to use as the foundation for a short monologue. Materials • Character/Conflict Sheets (download these at the end of the post) • Each stage requires a variety of prompts. These prompts will be scattered throughout the room. You’ll need enough so that groups can visit three different prompts per task. (e.g. If you have 15 students in groups of 3 you will need 5 prompts for each task.) • Character: Individual pieces of clothing. • Conflict: Objects both natural and manmade. The objects should be small enough to hold in your hand (e.g. rocks, packet of letters, toys, stuffed animals.) Instruction • Students are divided into small groups. • Start with Character. Tell students that each group is to go an area of the room where they will find a piece of clothing. • Each group studies their piece of clothing. Students will create a character who might wear this piece of clothing. Groups must unanimously choose the following details about the character: Gender, age, name, physicality, job, hobby, family, where do they live, and significant relationship (e.g. a person, an animal, a plant, dead relative, imaginary friend). • Direct students that they have five minutes to choose their character details. • Once the time limit is up, groups rotate to a second area of the room and repeat the exercise: study the piece of clothing and create a character who might wear it. • Once the time limit is up, groups rotate to a third area of the room and repeat the exercise: study the piece of clothing and create a character who might wear it. • Groups now have 3 character descriptions. • Groups will repeat the process to create a conflict. The Conflict prompt will be an object. • Each group moves to an area of the room where there is a conflict object. They are to study the object and answer the following questions: • What is the object? • What problem has this object caused? • What emotion is attached to the object? Why? • Direct students that they have a three minute time limit to answer their conflict questions. • Once the time limit is up, groups rotate to a second area of the room and repeat the exercise: study the object and answer the conflict questions. • Once the time limit is up, groups rotate to a third area of the room and repeat the exercise: study the object and answer the conflict questions. • Groups now have three character descriptions and three conflict objects. Groups will choose one character and match him or her with one conflict. • Groups will write a monologue for the character about the conflict. The character is speaking to whoever or whatever was chosen as the character’s significant relationship. Direct students that they must use their chosen conflict. How does the character talk about the object and the problem the object has caused? How does the character try to solve the problem in the monologue? • Groups share their monologues with the class.

Do your student playwrights struggle with getting started? Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with that first line, because there’s nothing more daunting to a new writer than the blank page. Help your students move forward by providing the first line and having them write the rest of the scene. It’s not doing the work for them, it’s helping student writers over the first hurdle. Instruction• Tell students that they are going to write every day for the next 10 days. • Their task is to write a two-person, one-location, one-page scene. • Choose a sentence for students and give it to them as the first line in the scene. • Give them two minutes to brainstorm and free write possible characters and stories from that first line. • Tell students to use their free write as source material and write their one-page scene. • Once students have written their scene, tell them to put it away. The goal here is to get words on the page, not assess the quality of what they’ve written. • Next class, repeat the process. Choose a first line, have them free write for two minutes, then write the scene and put it away. • At the end of 10 days, they will have 10 scenes. Ask them to choose one. • Divide students into groups and have them read aloud their scenes. Have them share why they chose that particular scene. • Discuss the exercise. Which line was the easiest to turn into a scene? Which was the hardest? Did having a first line help you write the rest of the scene? Which scene surprised you after you started writing? Do you think you could continue writing on any of the scenes? How do you feel about your writing abilities after writing 10 scenes? • Alternatively, you can have students write and submit a reflection where they respond to the above questions in complete sentences and in their own words. * * *

““I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.” “I can’t believe that!” said Alice. “Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.” Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”” What does it take to be creative? Not talent, not drive, not even imagination. It’s the suspension of disbelief. If you believe you can solve a problem in a new way, regardless of what other people think, that’s being creative. Try this “Impossible Things” scene exercise with your students. How far can they suspend their disbelief? This may be hard for many students! Their school life is so often determined by facts, what is right and wrong, and what they can and cannot do. If you have students who are struggling with the wider boundaries of drama class, creativity, imagination, or simply thinking they can do something (how many of you have heard someone say “I’m not creative.”), try this exercise! 1. Divide students into groups. 2. Each group is to create a scene. In the scene, everyone is part of a family, or visiting the family. (For example, Jane’s friend comes to pick her up before they go to school). The scene takes place in the kitchen before breakfast. 3. In the scene, six impossible things have to happen. The catch is that no one is allowed to treat the impossible as a joke. It is part of their world. No winks to the audience, no breaking character. In the world of the scene, the impossible is part of the everyday world. 4. Start off with a class discussion on what “impossible” means. What’s impossible in today’s world? In any world? 5. Then groups use the provided brainstorm sheet (download it below) to get creative. They must come up with at least 20 impossible things. The only caveat is that they have to be school appropriate. Emphasize that they must brainstorm without judgement. Write every idea down. Don’t worry about whether or not it’s doable in the confines of the classroom. 6. Groups use their brainstorm as the jumping off point for their scene. An outline sheet is provided (download it below) if it will help students gather their thoughts. And if they come up with new ideas as they work on their scene, that’s fine too. 7. Give students 20 minutes to decide on their impossible things and incorporate them into their breakfast scene. They may have to get “creative” with how they present some of their impossible things. For example, no one is really able to fly so how will they present flying if that’s one of their six things? 8. Groups share their scenes. 9. Afterward, discuss the impossible with students. What is it like to act as if the impossible is part of your everyday world? Has anyone ever told you something is impossible?

How do people create illusion out of harsh reality? In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois works hard at creating an illusion. She tells lies about her past so that others see her in a specific light. She tells lies to herself to soften her own memories. She puts a shade on the bare bulb so that no one can see her as she truly is. Many people try to soften a harsh reality. It may be that is the only way they can cope. Characters who choose illusion as a coping mechanism are always going to be interesting to write about. Exercise1. Journal Prompt: Ask students to reflect on how they cope with bad news. What is your coping mechanism? 2. As a class ask students their opinion on dealing with bad news or sad events. What is the best coping mechanism? What is their point of view on people who soften the truth of a sad situation? 3. Choose a tragic event from the news or history. A real event, not fictional. Choose a past event rather than something happening currently. Assign students to research the event for homework either individually or in groups. They have to come up with a list of details and a list of individuals involved in the event. 4. As a class compile the details and individuals. Put the information on large pads, on a whiteboard, or blackboard so everyone can see them. 5. Divide the class into pairs. Each pair creates a two character, one location scene based on the event. In the scene, the two characters are doing an activity – give the characters something to do as they talk. For example: they are preparing the room to paint, they are both waiters preparing for service before the restaurant is open, they are working on a class project, they are folding laundry. 6. In the scene Character A represents the reality of the event; they are there to state the facts. Character B represents an illusion of the event; they shroud the tragedy in a softer light as coping mechanism. How do they shed positive light on the event? How do they change the details to make it less harsh? For example, if the tragedy is about a horrible murder, perhaps Character B believes the murderer is innocent. How does Character A deal with Character B? 7. Present the scenes.

Have fun with the five senses! Students write a different header on five different pieces paper: 1. Sight (objects) 2. Sound 3. Smell 4. Touch (Textures) 5. Taste Go through the headers with the class and give them an example for each. Then have students create an their own examples for each sense. For Sight , come up with five objects. (e.g. car, stapler, trash can, sandbox) Sound is self-explanatory as is Smell – five sounds, five smells. For Touch , have students come up with five textures. (e.g. fuzzy, smooth, rough) For Taste , they can use food or drinks. But also encourage them to think outside the box. Perfume, for example, has a taste. Once you go through each sense once with your students, give them a few minutes to come up with their own. Five minutes tops. Next, tell your students they are going to be writing short scenes (10-15 lines). Each scene will have two characters and take place in one location. Brainstorm with your students on different types of characters and different locations. Put these on the board for students to choose from. Students start with the Sight page. They write their first scene using the objects example as inspiration. All five of their examples must make their way into the scene somehow. Students move on to the Sound page. Write a short scene using the sound examples. Next the Smells page. What kind of scene can they write inspired by smells? And then the Touch Page. What kind of scene can they write inspired by the textures examples? What do those textures represent? Are they characters? Are they indicative of a location? Lastly the Taste page. Write a short scene inspired by the taste examples. Discuss the writing afterward. Which sense was easiest to incorporate into a scene? Which sense was hardest? Would it be easier to combine senses rather than to limit a scene to just one sense? How does exploring the senses help in your future writing?

What: Tag Team Scene Who: Divide class into pairs Materials: Pens/Pencils, Character/Location/Line Pages, Timer Why: Use this exercise to practice writing natural-sounding dialogue. With this exercise students must keep true to a character and situation and write dialogue that is responsive rather than calculated. Instructions1. Once students are in their pairs, have them decide who is Partner A and who is Partner B. Partner A will be responsible for Character A’s lines, and Partner B will be responsible for Character B’s lines. 2. Tell students they’re going to write a scene one line at a time. Partner B will start with their first line, then pass the paper to Partner A, who will write their line in response, and so on. 3. There will be a time limit to write the line. For the first round, the time limit is one minute. 4. Give each pair a Character/Location/Line Page but place it face down. Instruct them not to turn the page over. 5. Instruct students that on this page there are three pieces of information to pay attention to: 1. An identifier for each character. For example, Character A: Mom, Character B: Teen. Character A: Dentist, Character B: Nervous Patient. They have to write for their character. 2. A location. Amusement park, dentist’s office, kitchen. When they write, their lines they have to stay true to their location. They cannot leave their location. 3. A first line for Character A. This is why Partner B starts. Partner B, your line must respond to that first line. Be true to the location and your character. If your character is a nervous patient and you’re in a dentist’s office, you can’t start a fight with nunchucks. 6. Once the papers are handed out, instruct students that on your command, Partner B (and only Partner B) will turn over the page. Partner B will announce the two characters and the location. Partner B will then read the line to themselves and respond with the next line without sharing what they’re writing with their Partner. 7. Tell students that you’re going to call out when time is up. At that point they are to switch papers. 8. Instruct Partner B to turn the page and start the time. 9. When the minute is up, call out the switch and restart the timer again. Now Partner A reads what Parter B just wrote and responds accordingly. Coach them to respond to the previous line. What would your response be, instinctually? Coach them to keep in mind who they are and where they are. 10. At the end of the time limit, instruct students to switch and Partner B writes the next line. Keep going until each partner has written five lines (ten in total). 11. Afterward, students read out their completed scene. 12. Discuss with students what it was like to have to write so quickly, to not be able to discuss the scene beforehand, and to respond without predetermining the scene. 13. Explain to students that organic regular conversation is all about response. We don’t often think about what we’re going to say, we just say it. We don’t get to go back and come up with the perfect line. Sometimes our response isn’t perfect. Writing natural-sounding dialogue requires you to be responsive. 14. Repeat the exercise again. This time give students 30 seconds to write each response.

At a recent conference middle school teacher Adam Moreno from the University School of Milwaukee shared with me how he uses Agatha Rex in the classroom: students work on, self-direct, and present the same scenes from the play on their own. I knew that these would be a great project to share. You have three different classes using a scene from one of our plays AGATHA REX. Why did you choose this particular scene?First off, I use Agatha Rex because it’s a strong introduction to some great aspects of Greek Theatre, especially the use of the Greek Chorus. I also use the theme of right and wrong to have in depth conversations with the students about ethics. The students struggle with the ideas of equal punishment, breaking the rules, and standing up for what you feel is right. Agatha Rex has valuable lessons that students need to learn and discuss. The end of the first act and the end of the second act are particularly strong scenes for the students to work on as an ensemble because of the use of the Greek Chorus. Everyone, with the exception of Agatha, speaks together. This takes the focus off of what each individual student is doing and focuses their energy on how the group says the lines and how the group moves on stage as an ensemble. The result is some awesome collaborative work! What are the expectations for the presented scene?I break acting down into two elements for my middle school actors: physicality (movement on stage) and expression (variations is voice). When the students begin, I emphasis the need to use the whole stage, to stay open to the audience, and to change levels. I also remind them that, even though they are speaking together, they need to convey emotion through their unison voice. We also talk quite a bit leading up to this project about the importance of “background” or “secondary” acting. What are you doing on stage, when you’re not saying a line. I love watching the creative ideas they come up with about who their characters are and what they are doing in each scene. Each of the classes must prepare and perform the scene on their own.

Consider this brilliant scene: “A: Do you like my dress? B: Yes, it’s beautiful.” Imagine you’re playing the role of B. And that is your only line in the entire show. The “obvious” choice is that B thinks A’s dress is beautiful. It’s the obvious choice, and it’s also the least interesting choice. • What if B is lying? Why would B lie? Because B intentionally wants A to look bad. • What if B is lying? Why would B lie? Because B is going to a function that A wasn’t invited to. • What if B is lying? Why would B lie? Because B feels that A has always lied to her. • What if B is lying? Why would B lie? Because B is a people pleaser and says what she thinks people want to hear. What if B is telling the truth? Are there interesting ways for B to tell the truth? Of course! • B is overwhelmed by the beauty of the dress and needs to compose herself before speaking. • B had her eye on the same dress in the store and is forlorn that A bought it before she got a chance. • B loves the dress but is jealous that A could afford it and she couldn’t. If you only have one line in a show, the director’s probably not going to spend a lot of time with you to develop your character, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one. Interesting choices – they don’t require a huge shift in performance, nor should they draw focus from the scene, but the interesting choice makes everything on stage more three-dimensional. There’s no such thing as a small role, just small choices. Make big choices. Make interesting choices.

Lindsay and Craig spread the love for Scene-Speare!: Shakespearean Scenes for Student Actors and Solo-Speare!: Shakespearean Monologues For Student Actors.