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This lesson will focus on creating bruises with stage makeup. Students will reflect on what causes a bruise and will then create a bruise on a partner using stage makeup.

Students will analyze the role of a stage manager as well as employ service skills to facilitate solutions to issues that a stage manager may face.

Stage combat is a form of storytelling. The fights need to continue the story that the actors are telling through their lines and scene work. And what makes a fight look even better is the performers’ actions and reactions to the fight. If a character resorts to violence, they’re obviously feeling strong emotions. This lesson allows students to think critically about how a fight affects a character physically and mentally and how the fight tells the story.

A review is a subjective but educated response. The reviewer gives an opinion, then supports it with thoughtful analysis. Students will examine existing reviews, identify the elements of a review, compare and contrast reviews, and practice supporting their opinions (i.e. not just “I like this” or “I don’t like that,” but explain the “why” behind their response).

Newcomers to improvisation often struggle with quick verbal responses. They get caught up with self-editing, self-judgement, and self-censorship and feel they’re failing at the exercise if they’re not fast enough. The gibberish tool allows students to practice the act of response with intention without the pressure of real words. It gives them confidence to participate in an improvised scene. Students will create a gibberish language as a group. Focus on making gibberish a language. “Yes, it sounds silly, but treat gibberish as a language.” The words don’t matter. How you say them does. Students will move to small group conversations, and finally improv scenes. Includes a list of scenarios, reflection, and assessment rubric.

Students will demonstrate their understanding of design and collaborating on a costume team by presenting their costume design and costume team pitch presentations. Students will participating in survey activities to reflect on the design and collaborative process.

In this lesson, students discuss and choose a topic for their devised piece.

A common acting exercise for students is to imagine what their character is doing next when they exit a scene and what they’re doing when they aren’t onstage. In this lesson, students will explore this exercise through playwriting by writing the next scene for an exiting character. Where did they go? What are they doing? Why did they leave? Note: This lesson could also be used as an emergency lesson plan if you’re in the middle of a play study unit and have an unexpected absence. It could also work as an independent project.

Students will read a text. They will respond to post-reading questions. They will then write their own versions of the next scene. What happens after the last line of dialogue? How will it end for the characters? What happens next, positively and negatively?

This ebook contains a set of multi-part task sheets, designed to be used as Emergency Lesson Plans for middle school students. The task sheets in this resource are designed to follow a scaffolding approach to topics through multiple parts. Students may analyze a monologue in Part 1, and then write their own in Part 2. They may read about set design using lines, draw a room using lines to visualize an atmosphere, and then create the world of the play that fits the set. They may respond to a quote and then use that quote as the starting point for a theatrical expression. Task Sheets come with additional handouts and worksheets to make it as straightforward as possible for substitutes to give information to students and for students to complete their tasks.

In this introductory lesson, students will be able to define “script” and “dialogue.” They will begin to brainstorm characters/relationships, setting, and conflicts to add content to a contentless scene that they will work on for the rest of the unit. Students will use a variety of methods they’ve learned in the previous unit to communicate meaning: setting, pantomime, relationship clues, objectives, stakes, and tactics.

Students will use insults and compliments to explore sound and imagery created in Shakespeare’s texts. Students will also practice this form, then create a short scenario where they must use their voice and body to bring Shakespeare’s imagery to life to achieve a specific emotional response.

Students will take a pre-quiz on some of Shakespeare’s plays, then find 5 things they did not already know about Shakespeare during a group discussion and presentation. This lesson includes a presentation for students to introduce Shakespeare and his time period.

A movie lesson plan includes a question sheet, and/or a Reflection, and/or a viewing quiz to prompt students to engage with what they’re watching and reflect on the experience afterward.

Students will be able to identify some of the major differences between acting for the stage and the camera. They will also be able to understand and use vocabulary that is specific to working on film sets and acting for the camera.

The objective of this lesson is to introduce the concept of cold reading to your students, and provide them with an opportunity to practice and perform cold readings within the classroom.

Students will be able to identify some of the major differences between acting for the stage and the camera. They will also be introduced to terms used on film sets and for acting for the camera and be ready to use those terms in upcoming projects.

By viewing this documentary, students explore Broadway’s history from the vaudeville shows and operettas of the 20th century to 21st-century extravaganzas such as Hairspray and Wicked. In this lesson, students will view, discuss, and reflect on Episode 1.

In this lesson, students will continue their examination of the individual elements that work together to create mise-en-scène. The next element is lighting. Students will apply their knowledge of how lighting helps visualize the story and create impact.

In this student driven activity, students will work together to put up a short one act play from audition to production within a one week time limit. The purpose of the activity is to show students, quickly, how important it is to work together, to collaborate, and to negotiate as a group. This is also a good activity to apply responsibility. The students themselves are responsible for all aspects of this activity - you should only take on an advisory role. Give feedback when asked but don’t act as a director or make decisions for your students. The point is not a “perfect” production but to give students an activity where they must work together in order to succeed. The process is more important than the product.