PD COURSE
Director's Toolbox 2: Teaching Students to Direct
by James Van Leishout
8 modules
2 hours, 47 minutes
4 Credit Hours
Director’s Toolbox 2: Teaching Students to Direct, explores the tools of the actor, rehearsal, space, and design.
The tool of the actor will focus on creating a safe place to play, auditions, and how to communicate with actors.
Rehearsals will look at the whole process from the first meeting to opening night.
The tool of space will explore how to direct in different spaces and how to create focus through stage composition.
Discover how an understanding of the elements of design help student-directors communicate with designers. The final step is a return to self and the mastery of self evaluation.
PD COURSE
Creating a Blended Learning Environment: Flipping Your Classroom
by Annie Dragoo
4 modules
37 minutes
1 Credit Hour
Annie Dragoo leads this course in learning how to create a flipped classroom where students will complete the majority of coursework online at home or outside of school, and then attend school for required face-to-face learning sessions.
Module One discusses the types of online learning - the advantages and disadvantages. Module Two, covers the first step: the online instruction. Module Three covers the face-to-face time and putting it all together. You will walk away from these modules with a prepared unit of study.
PD COURSE
LGBTQ+ 101 & Affirming Practices
by c.j Bell
4 modules
36 minutes
1 Credit Hour
Welcome to LGBTQ+ Inclusion 101 & Affirming Practices. This course is led by c.j Bell, pronouns they/them. By the end of this course, you'll be able to successfully implement LGBTQIA+ and LGBTQ2S+ practices in the classroom. And you will learn more information on how you, yourself, can relate to these specific margins, as an educator.
PD COURSE
How to Give Feedback to Student Playwrights
by Nicholas Pappas
6 modules
1 hours, 23 minutes
3 Credit Hours
The two big questions we’re going to answer in this course are: What is feedback? And, What is useful feedback? Now, if you asked a hundred people to answer these two questions, you’ll likely get a hundred different answers, but at its core, all the answers will focus on giving notes that will improve the work, which, in this case, is our student’s plays. And, as a teacher, that’s what your hope is, right? To help your students improve as writers, one work at a time.
We want our students to write, and to grow through their writing. If we want our students to get better, we need to get better. Understanding the definition of feedback, and understanding how to provide useful feedback is the key to all of us getting better.
Join Nick Pappas in this course designed to give you the tools to help your student writers find their voice.
PD COURSE
Director's Toolbox 1: Teaching Students to Direct
by James Van Leishout
8 modules
2 hours, 12 minutes
3 Credit Hours
In this course, James Van Leishout explores why students should direct, and covers the first two tools in the director’s toolbox: self and the script. What background should every director have? Why should they learn to love research? What should happen in the first four reads of a script?
With every step along the way, there will be exercises and activities your student directors can take on before they step into the rehearsal process.
PD COURSE
Concept-Based Design for the Theatre Teacher
by Matt Webster
10 modules
1 hours, 38 minutes
3 Credit Hours
Concept-Based Design is a method of design that allows the director and production team to create a unified world based on the ideas, perceptions and images extracted from an in-depth analysis of the play. Matt Webster designed this course for theatre teachers in a typical school setting with limited budgets, space and materials to use towards the design of their shows. Many theatre teachers feel most unsure about their design and tech skills and Matt wanted to help those teachers look at design differently, and make designing a show a little less scary and a little more fun!
PD COURSE
Screenplays 101 - Part 1: Basic Structure
by Nicholas Pappas
8 modules
1 hours, 22 minutes
3 Credit Hours
Screenwriter Nick Pappas leads a two-part course on screenplays 101. Great scriptwriting is not something that can be covered in a single course: so we're going to start with the basics. Those basics are going to be split up into a Part 1 and a Part 2. Part 1, this course, will concentrate on basic film structure. Part 2 will concentrate on screenplay formatting.
By the end of this course, students should have a basic understanding of history, terminology, and are able to identify the barest bones of the three-act structure, all with an eye toward developing their own screenplay.
PD COURSE
Screenplays 101 - Part 2: Basic Formatting
by Nicholas Pappas
9 modules
1 hours, 34 minutes
3 Credit Hours
This course is a Part 2. In a Screenplays 101 course, screenwriter Nick Pappas covers both Structure and Formatting. Here in Part 2 we'll cover Basic Formatting. If you have not already watched Screenplays 101 – Part 1: Basic Structure, I highly recommend you go back and do so now. Having that knowledge under your belt will help you navigate Part 2 of this course.
The goal is that, by the end of this course, your students have a basic understanding of how a screenplay is formatted and why it is formatted that way, all with an eye toward developing their own screenplay.
PD COURSE
Marketing the Arts
by James Van Leishout
8 modules
2 hours, 1 minutes
4 Credit Hours
This course covers the four stages of creating and implementing a marketing plan. It starts with the question, what are you selling?, and goes all the way through to evaluation. The course covers both traditional and new media, with examples and opportunities to apply the learning to each teacher's own situation.
PD COURSE
Every Day You Deserve a Round of Applause: Self-Compassion and Care for You as a Theatre Educator
by Gai Jones
5 modules
46 minutes
2 Credit Hours
Gai Jones leads this course in social and emotional self-compassion and care for the theatre educator. Join her on this 5-module journey to practice self-care and self-compassion while teaching educational theatre.
PD COURSE
Strong Ensemble = Strong Play
by Craig Mason
5 modules
1 hours, 8 minutes
2 Credit Hours
This mini-course will give you a toolkit to bring your shows to the next level by having an engaged, active, ensemble.
The ensemble is a critical part of a large cast show. But you can't leave them to fend for themselves. They need structure. They need exercises and activities.
In Strong Ensemble = Strong Play, you'll be given ensemble-building exercises. You'll also discover specific activities that will help your ensemble become three-dimensional characters who have something to do and something to play in every moment they are on stage.
We'll look at case studies that take the exercises learned in the course and apply them to specific shows.
PD COURSE
Old Age Makeup Tutorial
by Matt Webster
8 modules
1 hours, 10 minutes
2 Credit Hours
Instructor Matt Webster guides this tutorial on Old Age Makeup. Old age is the number one special effect makeup you will do and it’s a great process to teach in your class.
This video series takes you visually step by step through everything you need to know about creating old age makeup, from the subtle to the extreme. You can view each step individually so they can be practiced one at a time in the classroom.
The first part is the temple and the forehead. The second part are the cheeks and the jaw. Third will be lips, chin, and nose. Fourth is a section on the face called the nasolabial fold. Fifth, the eyes. And the sixth section will be looking at wrinkles, stippling and finishing the makeup look. These sections are designed to be seen one at a time and to teach within a 90-minute class between instruction, setup, practice, and cleanup. When you put them all together, you will have the parts and pieces to make a full old age makeup.
PD COURSE
Social Emotional Learning through Game Play
by Matt Webster
7 modules
57 minutes
2 Credit Hours
The skills identified in Social Emotional Learning are the same skills theatre teachers spotlight in the warmups, games, and activities, as well as group work and theater-related assignments found in the drama curriculum every day.
This course will break down the various games and activities in the drama classroom to identify, incorporate, and intensify the Social Emotional Learning outcomes we want our students to achieve. By the end of this course, you will be able to identify the five components of Social Emotional Learning and see the places in the curriculum where they intersect with basic games and activities in the drama classroom.
.png)
PD COURSE
Shakespeare's Toolkit
by Todd Espeland
9 modules
3 hours, 3 minutes
6 Credit Hours
Todd Espeland has the experience to know that having more tools in your toolbox makes you a better actor. This is especially important when teaching students how to approach Shakespeare. They need help breaking through the language barrier and into the character’s needs and into the character’s thoughts.
The tools that you’ll receive in this course will do just that. The course looks at scansion as a tool for breaking down Shakespeare’s verse, the importance of end of lines, and caesura. Caesura is an inner-line pause which is a lot of fun to play with and really, helps us provide insight to the character’s thoughts and into their needs.
The course provides numerous examples and handouts, and culminates in a performance assignment to use with your students.
PD COURSE
Empathy 2.0
by Steven Stack
7 modules
1 hours, 30 minutes
3 Credit Hours
Brought to you by instructor Steven Stack, creator of The Empathetic Classroom, this course looks at ways to move on from the worldwide pandemic, while honoring the past and learning from it. In the past year, students had many things taken from them: school, hanging out with friends, freedom, hope, and innocence.
With this course, each session will highlight one specific topic relating to moving on. There will also be activities for each session that will help your students own the past, embrace their own and others’ narratives and scars, create a stronger classroom community, find ways to be where their feet are planted, and learn to play again.
PD COURSE
Big Picture Blocking: Staging Your Play Outside-In
by Todd Espeland
10 modules
2 hours, 3 minutes
6 Credit Hours
Working in educational theatre I know how easy it is to get bogged down in actor coaching and away from the bigger picture storytelling when directing a show. I saw a need for a method of text analysis and physical staging tools that help the director stay focused on the bigger picture of telling the story of the play.
This class is in two parts: The first consists of the text analysis tools P.A.S.T.O and Major Dramatic Question. From these tools you will brainstorm keywords to define your vision of the story.
In the second part of the class you will focus on taking the information generated in the text analysis and crafting the ideas into vibrant physical pictures through an exercise called Starburst.
PD COURSE
From Audition to Curtain Call: Directing Youth Theatre
by Steven Stack
11 modules
1 hours, 42 minutes
3 Credit Hours
Directing youth theatre can be one of the most thrilling, rewarding, and exhausting jobs there is – because it’s not just about staging a play. It’s about creating an environment that fosters hard work, dedication, trust, and the willingness to take chances, to “play without fear.”
As a writer/teacher/director of youth theatre for over 15 years, I have developed tools and strategies that enable my students and me to focus on the process of creating theatre while fostering an environment that leads to creative freedom and a cohesive groups that doesn't act as individual “stars,” but as a community of one.
In this course, I will share with you these tips and strategies, along with the ways to implement them in your theatre environment.
PD COURSE
The Do-it-All Director's Introduction to Costuming
by Holly Beardsley
10 modules
2 hours, 12 minutes
4 Credit Hours
Do you know the difference between a bustle and a buckram frame? Or what works best as an emergency hem? Some directors are blessed with a big budget and a full support staff—a choreographer, a set designer, and a costumer. But the drama teacher often becomes director, choreographer, set designer, and costumer all in one.
And a budget? What’s a budget? The Do-It-All Director’s Introduction to Costuming will give you, the director, who must do it all, the confidence and skills to costume and direct, no matter your experience or budget. This course will teach you costuming basics, budget tricks, organization, and most importantly, the art of costuming as a director.
PD COURSE
Maximizing Your Ensemble: Shoestring 101
by Michael Calderone
8 modules
2 hours, 53 minutes
4 Credit Hours
This seven-part series is designed to transform that gaggle of actors cluttering your backstage from cumbersome extras into nothing less than the very center of your production.
Instructor Michael Calderone leads this course, through games and exercises geared to maximize your ensemble for your next production. These lessons are based on the ensemble technique that he's been using for the last 30 years, called the shoestring method.
The ensemble has a responsibility to work as one, and no role is more important than another. Without each actor playing their part, the other actors cannot tell the story to the best of their abilities. So join Michael in learning more about this exciting, practical and dramatic method.
PD COURSE
Copyright for Drama Teachers
by Craig Mason
9 modules
2 hours, 24 minutes
5 Credit Hours
An in-depth and interactive look at copyright as it applies to school theatre programs. Learn about how works become copyrighted, how long it lasts, how to get permission to use copyrighted work, and more.