Writing Articles for Drama Teachers

Free writing can be a great way to get your students into the drama class mindset. They have to pause, focus, and write for a specific amount of time without stopping or getting distracted. For...

It’s fun and interesting to imagine alternate endings to our favourite musicals. What if Annie had ended up being adopted by Lily and Rooster in Annie? What if the Von Trapp family wasn’t able to...

The exercises listed below can be adapted to distance and online learning opportunities. Students work individually (rather than with partners or in groups). Group work and discussions can be...

What Drama Teachers Need to Know (+ A Free Classroom Exercise)Iambic pentameter is a style of poetry, which refers to a certain number of syllables in a line and the emphasis placed on the...

““… I recommend they keep a diary, at least a page a day, and faithfully, and also to get into the habit of letter writing to other writers. The advantages that come with doing this seem...

We’ve all seen those reviews. The ones that rip the theatre production up one side and down the other. They criticize the scenery and the script. They suggest that the leads take up basket weaving,...

This is a great classroom exercise to not only have fun with Shakespeare but to also see how well students can re-frame which ever Shakespeare play they are studying. Take a character from one...

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...

Use a picture as a jumping off point for writing. Sometimes all students need is a little push to get the writing ball rolling. Use pictures for that push. You can have students create source...

Subtext is a glorious medium. It adds depth to a scene. There’s the conversation that two characters are having, and there’s the conversation underneath the conversation the two characters are...

The start of a new year holds many promises. I will make a resolution! I will change my life! I will….do something for two weeks and then go back to my old way of doing things. Because there’s so...

Location, location, location , a scene can totally be driven by where it’s set. Picture prompts serve as a great starting point. To that end, write a scene between two characters that use the...

The Best Writing Exercise ever? How can there be just ONE? Surely there’s a different “best” exercise for playwrights or novelists or poets? It’s impossible to make that claim! I am making that...

Birthdays are wonderful character development material because every human being has an immediate emotional reaction to their birthday. It could be that the character hates getting older or isn’t...

“Groak : To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.” As a lover of words, nothing tickles me more than seeing words that used to have a life and do no...

Over on Buzz Feed they have pictures of Happy Objects. Not, you know, objects with a cheery disposition, but that have happy faces somehow in them. They can’t help it, they look really happy. You...

I’m working on a new play in a different way this month. It’s going to be from the ground up with a class. When we had the first meeting a student raised their hand and asked “What’s this play...

““I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged”...