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UNIT
Part of the Drama Two Curriculum
Devising
by Corinna Rezzelle
While the Drama Two Curriculum has a focus on acting, it’s always important to include a unit on the technical theatre skills that are necessary to any production. Students will also be able to use what they’ve learned in this unit in their upcoming devising project.
Students will begin by exploring design for the stage by experimenting with line, shape, texture, size, and color. They will expand their understanding of stage properties and scenic flats. They will then apply their knowledge of these building blocks of design to create a high-concept design for a miniature “stage.”
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Stage Movement
by Karen Loftus
Students will get “onstage.” They will explore what is important for onstage action, the basics of stage directions, and how to keep open. This unit will culminate with students trying out what they’ve learned in a short scene.
This unit is more about the technicalities of moving on stage. By giving students something concrete to focus on, it allows them to overcome any stage fright.
Ensemble-building exercises are also included in this unit. If you have time at the end of a lesson after you’ve completed your instruction and are wondering what to do, you can never go wrong with an ensemble-building exercise!
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Pantomime
by Karen Loftus
In this unit, students will explore nonverbal communication: first, through body language and gesture, and then through the specific art of pantomime. Students will learn hand position, tension, follow-through, and action/reaction/interaction with objects through warm-up games and exercises. The unit culminates in a two-person pantomime performance.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Ancient Greek Theatre
by Karen Loftus
This unit on Ancient Greek theatre focuses on the function of the chorus, the choral ode, and the details of the theatre space. It touches on plays and playwrights of the era, culminating in a final project of a modern version of Medea that includes a choral ode.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Improvisation
by Karen Loftus
Students sharpen their listening and reaction skills through improv games, exercises, and scenes. They will learn five specific guidelines to apply to their improvisation: accept the offer, bring information to the scene, make active choices, make your partner look good, and don’t force the humour.
There are so many different ways to approach a unit on improvisation. Keep in mind that you will have students who are really excited about this unit and some students who dread it. It’s best to start with low-risk games and exercises and then build up to higher-risk ones. Low-risk games in this situation mean partnered interactions that aren’t shared with the whole class.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Commedia Dell'Arte
by Karen Loftus
Students will discover, analyze, and explore the history, characters, and style of commedia dell’arte.
Commedia dell’arte is a theatre history unit mixed with improvisation, physicalization, and exploring specific characters. In this unit, we’re going to focus on three main aspects:
1. Causes and Effects of Commedia (History)
2. Stock Characters
3. Commedia Performance Practices
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Script Analysis: The Actor's Perspective
by Karen Loftus
How does an actor analyze a script? Students start with character analysis (how do we learn about a character in a script? what are the facts/inferences about a character?) and then explore the ideas of “objective,” “obstacle,” “stakes,” and “tactics.” The unit culminates with students applying learned script-analysis techniques on an assigned scene.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Elizabethan Theatre
by Karen Loftus
How do you introduce students to Shakespeare? This unit introduces the Bard through life in Elizabethan England and the playwrights, players, and playhouses. It also explores how to approach unfamiliar words and context clues in Shakespeare’s texts.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Playwriting
by Karen Loftus
Students will explore the structural elements of a play: character, objective, obstacles, tactics, resolution, and raising the stakes. They will also learn how to write character-driven dialogue and stage directions. Students will work in groups to create and present a short play.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Japanese Theatre
by Karen Loftus
This unit will enable students to identify, compare, and contrast three different styles of Japanese theatre: Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki. There are three proposed projects in this unit: a research assignment where groups delve into further detail about one of the three styles; a performance project where students utilize what they’ve learned by enacting a scene from a Kyogen (comedic) play; and a Bunraku puppet play.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Scenic Design
by Karen Loftus
This unit will focus on the basics: what is scenic design? How do the scenic designer and director collaborate? What is the process that the scenic designer goes through? The unit will also explore basic drafting techniques, and rendering techniques.
Based on what they learn, students will create a ground plan and a rendering. Please refer to the Pacing Guide for more details and ways to supplement with other DTA materials.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Front of House
by Karen Loftus
This unit looks at theatre jobs in the business category: front of house, marketing, and box office. The aim of these jobs is to interact with the public. Students are able to identify what “front of house” refers to and understand the various roles of a theatre company’s front of house members.
Students will also explore how a show is marketed and demonstrate their knowledge of marketing by creating a simple marketing campaign for an original show.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama One Curriculum
Drama One Final Project
by Karen Loftus
The final project will incorporate multiple areas that students have studied over the course of the year/semester: playwriting, acting, scenic design, and marketing. They are putting everything they’ve learned into a final package, including writing, rehearsing, and performing.
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UNIT
Voice
by Anna Porter
In this unit, students will be introduced to a key element of performance: the voice. Students will explore how to thoughtfully communicate character, story, and emotion vocally. Students will begin by exploring articulation so that they understand the importance of clearly communicating their words onstage. They will further build on this with the following lesson on the different vocal varieties of pitch, tone, rate, and volume.
The final lesson helps students explore vocal characterization as well as the details and layers that can bring that character to life vocally. This unit study of the voice culminates in a final puppet show where students are asked to bring a story and character to life by using vocal variety, articulation, and characterization.
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UNIT
Puppetry
by Jenny Goodfellow
This unit on Puppetry is designed for middle school and up, to introduce students to the material and get them comfortable with performing in a safe and low exposure environment.
This is a unit that builds to a culminating experience for your students. Each lesson is designed to explore techniques, provide opportunities for creative collaboration among your students, and give them opportunities to perform. Some of the lessons require materials to build or create puppets. Puppetry can be as easy as drawing a face on your finger for finger puppets, to actually purchasing your own finger puppets for students to use.
While the focus of this unit is puppetry, your students will explore other skills as well. There’s the obvious ones of creative thinking, teamwork, and problem solving. They are also going to explore storytelling, performing skills, and playwriting.
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UNIT
Theatre of the Absurd
by Lea Marshall
WARNING: This unit is ABSURD. However, instructor Lea Marshall decided to do something really ABSURD with the unit, which was make it a bit more predictable. First, the unit takes two lessons to go over the Historical and Philosophical background of Theatre of the Absurd. It starts with just a visual exercise to really bring students into the emotional bleakness of the landscape and then group work to look at some of the other foundational elements that will drive the Absurdist movement into the Theatres.
Next, students break down absurd scripts into some “recognizable” elements of language, plot structure, acting choices, and storyline. With each lesson that introduces an Absurdist Element, there is an opportunity for students to “play” with the element. Then, students explore the element through an Absurdist text. This will help familiarize the students with the 4 Absurdist scripts used in the unit. These bite sized forays into the scripts will help students to choose a script to fully immerse themselves in for the final project.
As a final project, students will choose one script to work with, and choose the format of their project (performance, costume or set design, or playwright).
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UNIT
Agatha Rex and Ancient Greek Theatre
by Angel Borths
Help…It’s all Greek to me! Join Angel Borths in this unit that uses a modern adaptation of the Ancient Greek play Antigone to introduce Middle School students to Ancient Greek Theatre.
Have your students read Percy Jackson and want to find out more about Ancient Greece? Then, this unit is for you. This unit is designed for middle and high school students and will take you through the basics of classical Greek theatre and pairs it with a modern adaptation of the story of Antigone called Agatha Rex by Lindsay Price. Students will learn vocabulary, design, and basic theory surrounding classical Greek theatre. Students will also enjoy the mask building component of this unit, as they learn to disappear into the character of a mask, like the first actors did on a Greek stage thousands of years ago.
The unit culminates in a scene performance with masks.
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UNIT
Shakespeare Performance
by Anna Porter
In this unit by Anna Porter, students are introduced to the works of Shakespeare and explore how to bring a character to life in a monologue performance. Students are also introduced to the tools to help them unlock meaning in Shakespeare’s text. Through this eleven lesson series, students will participate in class discussions, activities and performance. Assessment tools include informal assessment, submission of textual analysis work and a final performance.
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UNIT
Unlocking Shakespeare's Text
by Anna Porter
Shakespeare’s text holds valuable tools that students can use to unlock and understand meaning. In this unit by Anna Porter, students explore how to use the tools of research, context, textual analysis, imagery and punctuation to help them unlock meaning in Shakespeare’s text. This unit is created for an Intermediate to Advanced drama class with a basic background in plot structure and acting technique.
Through this five lesson series, students will use journals, participate in class discussions, activities and performance to explore the tools used to unlock a text. Assessment tools include informal assessment as well as a final group presentation and performance.
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UNIT
Pantomime
by Anna Porter
In this unit, students explore how to communicate with their body by exploring elements of physicality and Pantomime. Lesson one helps students explore body awareness as well as the use of the senses and details in pantomime performance. In lesson two, students explore body language and how it is used to communicate by examining the art of flirting. Lesson three helps students create a distinct physical characterization. Lesson four introduces students to the quality of Pantomime – Consistency. In lesson five, students explore the quality of exaggeration in pantomime. In the final lesson, students prepare a pantomime story for performance.
Through this six lesson series, students will use journals, participate in class discussions and practice the elements taught by performing for their peers and as a class. Assessment tools include both informal assessment as well as a final Pantomime performance.
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UNIT
Costuming
by Holly Beardsley
A costume designer and a costumer are two different things. A costume designer creates pieces from the drawing board to the stage, while a costumer pulls from already existing pieces to create fully realized characters. This means that the approach is different.
In this six lesson unit students will learn the tools of a successful costumer. They will start by reflecting on their own personal style and the choices that go into that style. They’ll move on to look at versatility and adapting costume staples, creating a costuming vision, period clothing as the costumer, how to use the colour wheel as a costuming tool and everything culminates in a final project (two options).
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UNIT
Part of the Drama Two Curriculum
Character Analysis - Part 1
by Matt Webster
The Drama Two Curriculum has been developed to expand and deepen students’ skills as artists. In this unit, students will explore character analysis, which is key to developing three-dimensional characters in monologues, scenes, and plays. In Part 1, they will start with Uta Hagen’s nine questions for character analysis.
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UNIT
Part of the Drama Two Curriculum
Design
by Matt Webster
In this unit, students will explore and experiment with the basic building blocks of design: Line, Shape, and Color. Once students have a solid foundation of those concepts, they will move on to stage properties and scenic flats as additional building blocks of design. They will then apply their knowledge and skills to a series of assignments, so they can demonstrate their design knowledge and creativity.
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UNIT
Stage Management
by Karen Loftus
A unit on stage management is a great way to link technical theatre, acting, and even directing. We spend so much of our class time on performance-related projects and, when we do address technical theatre, we often do so by talking about design.
Why not introduce your students to a skill set that not only benefits your productions by ensuring a strong backstage crew and smooth production process, but also benefits the students individually? Through exploring stage management, students learn skills such as analytical thinking, organization, teamwork, and problem solving.
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UNIT
Ancient Greek Theatre - It's All Greek to Me! *Hyperdoc
by Lea Marshall
The purpose of this unit is to give students an introduction to independent learning as well as an overview of Ancient Greek theatre. Students will apply their knowledge throughout, and the unit culminates in a group activity.
This unit is delivered in hyperdoc format. What does that mean? A hyperdoc is an interactive tool that encourages digital learning. In this case, students are given a document on a subject, and there they can read articles, watch videos, do some independent research, and apply what they’ve learned. Because they’re working on their own, students are in charge of their own pacing.
Before you start the unit, ensure you read the Teacher Guide first. It will give you clear instructions on how to distribute the hyperdoc format and make it easy for you and your students.
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UNIT
Part of the Production Classroom Units Curriculum
Production Classroom Units Overview
by Karen Loftus
The overview lays out the all of the parts of The Production Classroom Units - which is divided into three parts.
In Part One, you’ll take your students through a series of pre-production units designed to help students gain as much comprehension as possible about putting on a successful production.
Part Two offers articles on each step in the process, samples and forms, a suggested pacing, role definitions and task checklists, an outline for a typical class, as well as performance duties. This section also outlines the assessment piece for The Production Classroom – the production binder.
Part Three provides a Post-Performance Reflection. Unpack the experience with students, reflect back on what went right and what could be changed for next time. A written Reflection is included as well as a Rubric for student production binders.
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UNIT
Part of the Production Classroom Units Curriculum
Part One - Pre-Production
by Karen Loftus
In Part One of The Production Classroom, you’ll take your students through a series of pre-production units designed to help students gain as much comprehension as possible about putting on a successful production.
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UNIT
Part of the Production Classroom Units Curriculum
Part Two - Rehearsal and Performance
by Karen Loftus
Part Two offers articles on each step in the process, samples and forms, a suggested pacing, role definitions and task checklists, an outline for a typical class, as well as performance duties. This section also outlines the assessment piece for The Production Classroom – the production binder.
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UNIT
Part of the Production Classroom Units Curriculum
Part Two - Documents
by Karen Loftus
This section provides samples and worksheets for actor forms, costume department, general binder, lighting and sound, marketing samples, scenic and prop samples, and stage management and production manager samples and forms.
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UNIT
Part of the Production Classroom Units Curriculum
Part Three - Reflection and Assessment
by Karen Loftus
Part Three provides a Post-Performance Reflection. Unpack the experience with students, reflect back on what went right and what could be changed for next time. A written Reflection is included as well as a Rubric for student production binders.
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UNIT
Theatre Etiquette
by Kerry Hishon
When teaching students who are brand new to theatre, it’s important to discuss and apply the expectations of the drama classroom and the theatrical world. How do you implement and instill theatre etiquette in your classroom and your rehearsals – before a show and backstage? A cohesive theatrical community starts with the rules and codes of behaviour both onstage and off.
Topics covered within the unit include: What is Etiquette, Real World vs Theatre World Etiquette, Audience Etiquette, Audition Etiquette, Pre-Show and Performance Etiquette. The unit ends with a culminating activity which included a rubric and reflection.
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UNIT
Improvisation in Musical Theatre
by Annie Dragoo
Understanding basic improvisation skills will help musical theatre performers understand that musical theatre is more than just singing and dancing. It’s about using all the tools (voice, body, and mind) an actor has at their disposal to create a character.
This unit focuses more on the improv aspect rather than the musical theatre aspects - in fact students need no prior musical theatre knowledge. Annie Dragoo, creator of the unit, uses this material as her first unit in her musical theatre class. It’s a great introduction and will get your students in the right frame of mind to approach musical theatre.
The lessons explore a variety of improv skills such as vocal responses, movement, character study, sensory awareness and culminate in an improv scene and unit essay.
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UNIT
Introduction to Film Analysis: Mise en scène
by Lindsay Price
Lindsay Price has developed this Introduction to Film Analysis Unit: Mise en scène. In order to develop visual literacy, students have to be able to analyze what they see. In a film, the composition of everything you see on screen is called mise-en-scène. In this unit, students will explore the individual elements that make up mise-en-scène, be able to identify those elements in stills and film scenes, and apply their knowledge in a culminating analysis activity.
Heads up. You’re going to need some technology for this unit. Students need to be able to view, either as a class or 1:1 images, a google slide deck and selected film scenes.
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UNIT
Musical Theatre History Museum Project
by Annie Dragoo
Musical Theatre is a uniquely American art form, explored through this unique unit by instructor Annie Dragoo.
It is divided into two parts: first, students view a documentary called Broadway the American Musical - available on YouTube. Students will reflect after each episode and there is an available viewing quiz.
After viewing, discussing and reflecting on each episode of the PBS Documentary, Broadway: The American Musical, students will research a specific topic in order to create and design a musical theatre museum exhibit. It’s a great three-dimensional demonstration of knowledge, and there is a rubric provided for the completed exhibit.
This is not your traditional textbook history learning!
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit One: Ensemble Building and Class Norms
by Lindsay Johnson
This unit has six lessons that you can use in the first week of your middle school program. What do you do in the first week? The most important elements are creating routines such as journal prompts, opening and closing circles, and giving strong feedback; creating an ensemble and ensemble-building games; and introducing a Weekly Ensemble Rubric.
Students will define and build ensemble as a group, learning specific ways they can SAY YES and BE SAFE in class. They will understand the daily grading system and the basic routines of class. Finally, students will learn to give strong feedback by connecting specific evidence from performance to the Rubric language.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Two: Improvisation Basics
by Lindsay Johnson
In this unit, students will learn, practice and apply three important rules of improv: accepting and building on offers, quick thinking, and strong offers. For each step, they will work with the Improvisation Rubric by both giving and receiving feedback. Students will also start to practice techniques to improve their vocal clarity. The unit culminates in a performance assessment in which students will play an improv game in front of an audience.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Three: Building Improvised Scenes
by Lindsay Johnson
Students will understand the basic building blocks of a scene: The Who (characters/ relationship), the Where (setting), and the What (conflict – objectives/tactics). They will learn how to use both verbal and nonverbal (pantomime) clues to communicate these scene details to an audience. They will continue to work on voice clarity, while also learning to open their body to an audience. The unit culminates in a performance assessment in which students work in pairs to improvise a scene.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Four: Intro to Scripted Scenes
by Lindsay Johnson
Students will be introduced to the most basic of scripts: the contentless/open scene script. They will use their knowledge of character/relationships, setting, objective, and tactics to add content to a contentless scene. Students will also learn the basics of set design and blocking, and will begin using voice expression to communicate clearer characters. The unit culminates in a performance assessment in which students will work in pairs to add content to and perform a contentless scene.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Scenic Construction
by Karen Loftus
Students will be able to identify the various tools used in a set shop, identify appropropriate shop safety procedures, including personal protective equipment, and demonstrate how to build a flat.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Scenic Painting
by Holly Beardsley and Karen Loftus
Students identify and practice some basic painting techniques.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Lighting
by Karen Loftus, Josh Hatt, and Kerry Hishon
Students will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of lighting effectiveness. They’ll also be able to identify, analyze, and evaluate how lighting is used in a theatre production.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Costume Design
by Holly Beardsley, Karen Loftus, and Josh Hatt
Students are exposed to research, concepts, and skill sets while they explore costume design and the different roles of the costume designer and the costumer. They will be able to demonstrate their knowledge of costume effectiveness.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Costume Construction
by Karen Loftus
Students identify vocabulary, techniques, and roles of costume construction. They demonstrate costume measurement and other construction techniques, including a basic stitch.
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UNIT
Part of the Stagecraft Without a Theatre Curriculum
Culminating Project
by Karen Loftus
Now it’s time for your students to take everything they’ve learned and creatively apply those skills. The goal is for students to take what they’ve been exposed to, explored, and researched about each of the arts and crafts of technical theatre and apply it to a project.
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UNIT
Creating a Musical: Project
by Annie Dragoo
Want a fun project that has your students collaborating and creating? In this unit by Annie Dragoo, students in groups will write and perform an original musical by adding modern songs to a traditional fairy tale story.
The six lessons take students from writing their script, to choreography and planned movement, to rehearsing, performing and evaluation.
The Rubric will focus on student performance. That means vocal delivery, emotional delivery, blocking/choreography, energy, focus, and characters.
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UNIT
Creating Your Own Musical
by Laramie Dean
Instructor Laramie Dean uses this unit as the final project for his Drama 2 students. Drawing upon any of the skills students have developed throughout they create a product that could be used within a new piece of musical theatre.
Students start by analyzing three musicals, study guides included, and practice creating musical elements. They are then giving class time to prepare in groups as many elements as their can for a new musical using devised theatre techniques.
There are 24 lessons in this unit which culminates in a final assessed performance.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Five: Intro to Script Writing
by Lindsay Johnson
In this unit, students learn how to write their own scripts using correct formatting. These scripts will be more detailed than the contentless scenes. Students will learn how to write dialogue that provide information about relationships, conflicting objectives, and setting.
They’ll also learn how to correctly add expression and movement directions into the script itself. The unit will end with a partner script writing assignment which is performed in front of the class.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Six: Directed Scenes Take 1: Same Scene, Different Visions
by Lindsay Johnson
Students will now start applying the skills they’ve learned thus far in the context of existing, fleshed-out scripts.
They will also have opportunities to shift from actor to director and hone such skills as collaboration, self-confidence, and problem-solving which can be used in many other areas of their lives.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Seven: Directed Scenes Take 2: A Variety of Scenes
by Lindsay Johnson
Students will have another opportunity to participate in student-directed scenes, only this time each director will be assigned a different script, and actors for each group will be chosen by the teacher based on individual strengths and challenges, rather than holding auditions.
Actors will take a deeper dive into character physicality and use of levels in staging this unit. Directors will continue to create a set design and block the scenes, adding props as well in this unit.
The unit culminates in actors presenting their directed scenes to the class.
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UNIT
Part of the Middle School Curriculum
Unit Eight: Theatre of the Oppressed
by Lindsay Johnson
Students will have a chance to merge their understanding of scene elements with their improvisation skills in this final unit based on Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Theatre of the Oppressed is a style of theatre specifically created to highlight the injustices of power and oppression in society and to problem-solve ways to bring about change.
Starting with image theatre techniques to identify issues of power and oppression, students will then use forum theatre to create scenarios of oppression taken from their own lives and improvise realistic solutions.
The unit culminates in a performance in which students participate as both actors in a scene they create themselves and spect-actors in scenes created by their peers.
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UNIT
Aristotle's Elements
by Lea Marshall
Aristotle was a huge fan of the theatre. He philosophically believed in it and argued with other great thinkers at the time about the necessity and good results of theatrical pursuits. This makes him a great topic for a drama classroom unit.
Aristotle identified six elements that needed to be in a play for it to be worthy: plot, thought, character, diction, spectacle, and sound. This unit by Lea Marshall focuses on and offers exercises for each of Aristotle’s elements - from using fairy tales to examine plot, to re-imagining movie trailers to explore music.
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UNIT
Introduction to Musical Theatre: Movement
by Annie Dragoo
Musical theatre performers use their bodies to sing, to dance, and to act. We must think of our bodies as instruments and learn to use our instruments properly in order to be better musical theatre performers.
The overall objective with this unit, by Annie Dragoo, is for students to demonstrate an understanding of the use of good movement as it connects to musical theatre. Some of the activities include using action verbs, moving as animals and inanimate characters, nonverbal communication and situational movement. Students will then perform a scene that will allow them to put to practice all the movement techniques they have learned.
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UNIT
Our Town Unit
by Lindsay Price
This is a read, discuss, and apply literature unit. Students will study the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder.
Our Town is often referred to as “nostalgic.” It’s seen as an antiquated look at a moment in time. But this play is called Our Town, not My Town. What’s happening in Grover’s Corners happened in the past, the distant past, in our present, and even in the future. The themes of the play—the ordinary versus universality, the concept of time, the cycle of life, the ignorance of humanity to the eternal—these are just as relevant in the twenty-first century as they were when the play was written.
The purpose of the unit is not to have students recall knowledge about the play. Students will be able to identify, articulate, and dramatize text themes and concepts and compare/contrast these concepts to their own experiences.
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UNIT
Introduction to Technical Theatre: Flipped Learning
by Lindsay Price
When an audience watches a piece of theatre, they never see what goes on behind the scenes or know the people who work to make the production look its best. But theatre is a collaboration between what happens onstage and off.
This flipped learning unit will introduce students to the world of technical theatre. Through video, they will learn information on specific technical theatre roles and how they work together, types of stages, parts of a theatre and stage geography, and then apply this knowledge through in-class active-learning exercises.
For example, students will take on the role of a producer and decide how a budget will be divided among different departments. They will practice the calls a stage manager uses. The culminating assignment has students solve a common technical theatre issue: to design, create, and implement a solution for a unique stage direction in a play.
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UNIT
Part of the Distance Learning Curriculum
Introduction to Technical Theatre: Distance Learning
by Lindsay Price
When an audience watches a piece of theatre, they never see what goes on behind the scenes or know the people who work to make the production look their best. But theatre is a collaboration between what happens onstage and off.
This distance learning unit will introduce students to the world of technical theatre. Through video, they will learn information on specific technical theatre roles and how they work together, types of stages, parts of a theatre and stage geography, and then apply this knowledge through synchronous exercises.
For example, students will take on the role of a producer and decide how a budget will be divided among different departments. They will practice the calls a stage manager uses. The culminating assignment has students solve a common technical theatre issue: a unique stage direction in a play.
NOTE - Please read the Troubleshooting Hyperdocs instructions in the Overview, if you are having issues. If your students have trouble accessing the videos, try VERSION 2 Hyperdoc links provided under each module.
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UNIT
Part of the Distance Learning Curriculum
Improvisation
by Lindsay Price and Karen Loftus
Students sharpen their listening and reaction skills through improv games, exercises, and scenes. They will learn five specific guidelines to apply to their improvisation: accept the offer, bring information to the scene, make active choices, make your partner look good, and don’t force the humor.
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UNIT
Part of the Distance Learning Curriculum
Pantomime
by Lindsay Price and Karen Loftus
In this unit, students will explore nonverbal communication. First through body language and gesture, and then through the specific art of pantomime. Students will learn hand position, tension, follow-through, and action/reaction/interaction with objects through warm-up games and exercises. The unit culminates in a one-person pantomime performance.
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UNIT
Part of the Distance Learning Curriculum
Theatre of the Absurd
by Lea Marshall
We included this unit in our Distance Learning Curriculum because if any group of students would understand how the world turned upside down and then apply it to theatre, it would be the students dealing with a global pandemic.
First, we take two lessons to go over the historical and philosophical background of Theatre of the Absurd. We start with a visual exercise to bring students into the emotional bleakness of the landscape and then group work to look at some of the other foundational elements that will drive the absurdist movement into the theatres. Next, we break down absurd scripts into some “recognizable” elements of language, plot structure, acting choices, and storyline. In each lesson that introduces an absurdist element, there is an opportunity for students to “play” with the element.
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UNIT
Pre-Lighting Design
by Kerry Hishon
The exercises within this unit are meant for students to explore the concept of lighting for theatre without the need for extensive tech or even a theatrical lighting grid.
This unit is useful for students with no prior experience with lighting or students who may be intimidated by the idea of theatre technology.
Each exercise is meant to build upon the previous one, as students grow in their confidence with thinking about lighting in different ways.
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UNIT
Virtual Acting for the Camera
by Ruthie Tutterow
The unit is adapted for a virtual environment.
The purpose of this unit is for students to know the differences and practice skills for film versus stage acting. They should also know the basic vocabulary of acting for the camera. It will also be helpful for them to get practice in editing. By seeing both sides of the camera, they will gain valuable experience in seeing what works from both the producing and acting side. Students will be able to see and reflect on their work.
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UNIT
Acting for the Camera
by Ruthie Tutterow
The purpose of this unit is for students to know the differences and practice skills for film versus stage acting. They should also know the basic vocabulary of acting for the camera. It will also be helpful for them to get practice in editing. By seeing both sides of the camera, they will gain valuable experience in seeing what works from both the producing and acting side. Students will be able to see and reflect on their work.
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UNIT
Alexander Technique
by Ruthie Tutterow
The purpose of this unit is to acquaint students with the Alexander Technique. In doing so, and in practicing many of its principles, students will make discoveries about some of their habitual patterns of movement.
Students will be able to demonstrate and explain how to use Alexander Technique principles in an activity of their choice.
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UNIT
Anti-Realism
by Wendy-Marie Martin
This unit gives students an overview of the anti-realism movement of the late 19th century and early 20th century and introduces them to some key theorists, playwrights, and theatre makers involved in this movement. Students will be introduced to the “isms” of symbolism, Dadaism, surrealism, expressionism, and absurdism along with various manifestos and theories as we track the characteristics of each “ism.”
In a culminating project, students will design an “ISMS’’ Theme Park, which they will share with the class at the end of the unit. Their project will feature each of the five “isms” in the form of rides, themed concessions areas, entertainment options, and in-park characters.
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UNIT
Impowerment Improv
by Jennine Profeta
Taking risks, learning to see failure as a gift, finding courage when we don't feel it, and having the awareness that what we say has an impact are social and emotional skills students will take beyond the classroom. These are skills that can be built through improv exercises.
The exercises in this unit are designed to create a safe environment in which students can go beyond their old patterns to take risks, embrace failure, and be more confident and aware of the effects of their word choices. Improv gives you the opportunity to draw attention to these important concepts and to talk about them.
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UNIT
Decolonizing Monologues
by Nicholas Pappas
In this unit, students will write a monologue authentic to their unique voice rather than to a Eurocentric canon model. We are going to decolonize the monologue. The goal in decolonizing monologues is to be inclusive of all voices in the classroom and to allow those voices to grow out of the unique style and cultural background of every student.
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UNIT
Perspective Taking
by Lindsay Price
Perspective taking is the ability to understand a situation from another person’s perspective or point of view: What are they thinking? What are they feeling? How does their background influence their perspective? Perspective taking allows students to develop self-awareness, to recognize differences, to understand an opposing point of view, to assess nonverbal language, and more.
In this unit, students will practice perspective taking as they:
• Assess their own perspective.
• Demonstrate understanding of the perspective of others in specific situations.
• Analyze characters in a text.
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UNIT
Foundations of Acting
by Annie Dragoo
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the foundations of acting. At the end of the unit, students will be able to understand the value of making rich acting choices on stage.
This unit gives students an opportunity to explore and develop acting skills on a more advanced level, regardless of experience. They will explore skills, including voice, movement, emotional recall, memory, playing objectives, and character development culminating in a final scene.
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Abstract Scene Performance
by Annie Dragoo
In this unit, students will create and perform an abstract theatre scene. Abstract is a genre that does not rely on realism and deliberately breaks the rules of a given form. In the case of theatre, this refers to the commonly presented rules of performance, acting, and the relationship with the audience. Movement is often stylized and symbolic. Ideas and themes are expressed visually and aurally with little dialogue using music, lights, costumes, and props.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 1: Before and Beyond Ancient Greek Theatre
by Drama Teacher Academy
In the study of theatre history, when we discuss the origins of theatre, most start with the Ancient Greeks. Unit 1 of this curriculum will look at the theatre of Ancient Egypt, Sanskrit drama, and Indigenous storytelling.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 2: Greek & Roman Origins
by Drama Teacher Academy
For Ancient Greece, we will examine the ritual origins of tragedy and the Festival of Dionysus. We will explore the theatre conventions of the day including the amphitheatre, the use of masks, costumes, and other theatrical devices. Finally, we will introduce the main playwrights and their key plays. Then we will take a short look at Roman theatre with their wholesale appropriation of Greek culture.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 3: Medieval Theatre
by Drama Teacher Academy
We journey from the Dark Ages to the emergence of Medieval drama. The liturgical or religious drama appeared in the churches as a means of religious instruction. Along the way, production moved from being written in Latin to the local vernacular and then outgrew the churches. The guilds then took over the production responsibilities. The plays came in four types: mystery, miracle, morality, and mummers plays. These can be remembered as the four Ms of Medieval drama.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 4: Commedia Dell'Arte
by Drama Teacher Academy
We take a side trip to Italy to discover a secular comedic form: Commedia Dell’arte.
Students will be introduced to the form, explore the characters and themes, and put their knowledge to practical application by creating a commedia character.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 5: Asian Theatre
by Drama Teacher Academy
It’s important to step outside of Western Eurocentric Theatre. In this unit, we are going to focus on the Asian theatre forms that developed in China and Japan. Note: We acknowledge that a unit on Asian theatre that only covers the theatre origins of two countries does not represent Asia. To go beyond what is offered here please see the Diversity
Document.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 6: Theatre of the Renaissance
by Drama Teacher Academy
In this unit, we return to Western theatre and to Italy, where we will witness the birth of the Renaissance and the discovery of linear perspective. Then we travel on to the Golden Age of Spanish theatre. We will pass by the Elizabethan Golden age (we’ll cover it in the next unit) and end the Renaissance journey by discovering French neoclassicism and the Rules of Drama.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 7: The Elizabethan Golden Age
by Drama Teacher Academy
We continue our look at the Renaissance era with the Elizabethan Golden Age. This golden age of theatre started when James Burbage built the first permanent playhouse in England, called The Theatre. Of the more than 80 playwrights in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, the three most significant were Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare. This age came to an abrupt end when the Puritans executed King Charles I, abolished the crown, and closed all the theatres.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 8: Restoration Comedy & 18th Century Theatre
by Drama Teacher Academy
We will travel through two time periods in this unit. First, we will explore Restoration Comedy in late 17th century England. When the Puritan-led Commonwealth failed and King Charles II was restored to the throne, theatre was also restored. The Comedy of Manners mocked the behaviour and loose morals of the upper class. The lack of theatrical works in the 18th century comes down to three things: playwrights tended to write for opera rather than theatre, censorship and control of theatrical content, and, more than anything, society of the day valued conformity over originality. In France and England, fearing attacks and mockery, the crown and the government passed laws that strictly censored theatre.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Unit 9: Romanticism
by Drama Teacher Academy
Romanticism broke away from the strictures of the neoclassical era preferring instead the Medieval/Gothic periods. The Romantic notion of finding beauty and humanity in the ugly is epitomized by Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The movement rejected Enlightenment, scientific rationalism, and the Industrial Revolution; rather, it embraced intuition and emotion over reason. On one hand, the tail end of neoclassicism led to the well-made play. On the other hand, the emphasis on emotion led to melodrama and an artificial declamatory acting style.
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UNIT
Part of the Theatre History Curriculum
Culminating Project
by Drama Teacher Academy
The goal of this culminating assignment is to give students the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of a variety of theatre history eras; connect, compare, and contrast between the eras; and, lastly, to connect, compare, and contrast what has happened in the past to what is happening in the present.
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UNIT
Theatre Radically Reimagined: Exploring Artaud, Grotowski, and Boal
by Ruthie Tutterow
In this unit, students will learn about Antonin Artaud and how his ideas influenced avant-garde theatre in the 20th and 21st centuries. They will also learn how Jerzy Grotowski took Artaud’s theories into new directions. This is done through direct instruction. A culminating presentation will ask students to take common stories and reimagine them using some of these ideas. They will present a “pitch” of an avant-garde version of their story. In the second lesson, students learn about some of the ideas of Augusto Boal and try a session of Forum Theatre.
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UNIT
The Dilemma Project
by Claire Broome
The Dilemma Project is based on a situation that requires a decision: push a button and get a great reward, but there’s also a great consequence. Don’t push the button and there’s no reward.
This unit will lead to a group performance including characters, costumes, set, acting theory, acting tools, and a student written script. The final script will be about ten pages in length which means roughly ten minutes of stage time.
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UNIT
Introduction to Stanislavski
by Drama Teacher Academy
This is an in-depth unit with instruction and activities about the Stanislavski acting method. It is followed by scene work in which students learn how to score a scene, do a comprehensive character analysis, and use what they have learned in rehearsals in a performance. Students will also watch their own work and evaluate their process after the performance.
The purpose of this unit is to give students an introduction and understanding of Stanislavski’s method and to put it into use as they prepare scenes for performance. After seeing their work, and spending time reflecting on how they used the principles of the method, students should take away a concrete understanding of how to prepare a role for performance.
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UNIT
Virtual Introduction to Stanislavski
by Drama Teacher Academy
The unit has been adapted for a virtual environment.
This is an in-depth unit with instruction and activities about the Stanislavski acting method. It is followed by scene work in which students learn how to score a scene, do a comprehensive character analysis, and use what they have learned in rehearsals in a performance. Students will also watch their own work and evaluate their process after the performance.
The purpose of this unit is to give students an introduction and understanding of Stanislavski’s method and to put it into use as they prepare scenes for performance. After seeing their work, and spending time reflecting on how they used the principles of the method, students should take away a concrete understanding of how to prepare a role for performance.
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UNIT
Realism and Naturalism
by Drama Teacher Academy
This unit looks at the origins of realism and naturalism. The Realism/Naturalism movements in Europe came about as a response to the artificiality of the Romantic Movement. Realism/Naturalism strove for real-life characters and situations. This unit looks at early realist playwrights and their plays as well as the Independent Theatre Movement, which provided venues for the new forms when established theatres refused to produce these plays. In America, this became the Little Theatre Movement, where groups experimented with theatre away from the strictures of the syndicated houses. In the meantime, professional theatre was developing on Broadway, including early Black performers. Realism finally came to the American stage with the plays of Eugene O’Neill.
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UNIT
Technical Theatre: Leadership in Theatre
by Michelle LoRicco
This Technical Theatre unit is designed to empower student leaders to analyze management roles in producing theatre while also using collaborative activities and reflection exercises to strengthen soft skills that every student should have. The unit covers the roles of producer, director, technical director, and stage manager, and ends in a culminating project.
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UNIT
Absurdism: Beyond the Origins
by Drama Teacher Academy
In most units that cover the Theatre of the Absurd, the number of playwrights addressed are few and the time period is limited. While it is certainly true that the era identified as “The Theatre of the Absurd” was a reaction to the distorted reality of life after World War II, there are many environments that create distorted realities and many playwrights who use those realities as catalysts for absurdist plays.
In this unit, we will start with a traditional look at the Theatre of the Absurd and then expand our exploration beyond its origins.
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UNIT
Spoken Word Poetry
by Quincy Young
In this unit, students will create a performance of a spoken word poem designed to engage, entertain, and affect an audience. They will also write a poet’s statement in which they describe the purpose(s) or inspiration(s) of their poetry.
This is not a technical writing unit and is geared more toward students self-expression and engaging an audience. If your students are not skilled poets, this unit is still accessible.
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PD COURSE
Mission Possible: Creating A Mission And Unified Vision For Your Theatre Program
by Amy Patel
Whether you're in a new school or have an existing program, you can use a Mission Statement to define your program, unify your students and let everyone know from administration, to parents, to the community why you do theatre, what you do and how you do it. Learn how to create this powerful and vital statement with your students. Mission Possible takes you through step by step from asking the right questions, to looking at your school culture and traditions, to writing and revising, to shouting your statement from the rooftops.
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PD COURSE
Close Reading in the Drama Classroom
by Lindsay Price
Close reading is an activity that puts curriculum standards into practice and it can be easily applied to the drama classroom.
Close reading asks a lot of your students. They have to read and think at the same time.
This course teaches drama teachers how the close reading process works, and gives them exercises and tools to apply it in the classroom.
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PD COURSE
Introduction to Stage Management Part One
by Karen Loftus
In this course, instructor Karen Loftus explores the responsibilities of a stage manager. You'll learn exercises that will help you demonstrate those responsibilities and the necessary skills of a stage manager to your students. You'll learn how to train your students to serve as stage managers for your school’s productions.
The course takes you through what a stage manager does prior to rehearsal and throughout the rehearsal and performance process to have a smooth-running backstage. It includes learning about the paperwork required, including prompt scripts, rehearsal preparations, notating blocking, and a stage manager’s kit and checklist to wrap it all together.
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PD COURSE
Creating the Ensemble-Based Classroom
by Gai Jones
Gai Jones will help you establish an ensemble-based environment from the first day of class or rehearsal.
Learn how to set up your ensemble-based classroom from day one, get students to set classroom norms, and find the balance between creative activity and structure. You’ll learn how to give your students creative freedom through structure and classroom management. The cornerstone of this course are the detailed ensemble experiences from large group to small group and even individual experiences.
This course culminates in a devising model that you can use with your students, and takes you through process, product, performance and an evaluation.
You too can create the ensemble-based classroom.
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PD COURSE
Introduction to Stage Management Part Two
by Karen Loftus
Karen Loftus instructs this second course in stage management - a companion to Introduction to Stage Management Part One.
This course will review the major concepts covered in Introduction to Stage Management, and discuss the different types of technical rehearsals and how student stage managers prepare for and run them. You’ll learn how to teach your students to notate and call cues for a show. The course will also introduce strategies for student stage managers who work with student crews. It will discuss how you can provide the support your student stage managers need to be effective, and how that support helps to strengthen your overall program and theatre community.
Student stage managers start in the classroom, train during school productions, and can take these newly discovered and acquired skills on with them to colleges and careers and theatre (and beyond)!
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PD COURSE
Theatre Etiquette 101
by Kerry Hishon
Instructor Kerry Hishon is an actor, director, writer, and stage combatant with years of experience in youth theatre. Her course, Theatre Etiquette 101, is designed to help students be successful in their theatrical journeys.
When teaching students who are brand new to theatre, it’s important to discuss and apply the expectations of the drama classroom and the theatrical world.
This course starts by explaining "what is theatre etiquette", and then moves through every step in the production process from audition to post-show recovery.
Every module has tips for both you and your students, classroom exercises, rehearsal exercises, and reflections. There are also printable posters included to use in your classroom or backstage.
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PD COURSE
The Production Classroom
by Karen Loftus
In The Production Classroom, instructor Karen Loftus will show you how to explore ways that you can produce shows during your regular class time. The course gives you a series of exercises and reflections that help you determine everything, from the type of show you may want to do, to the way you can divide up your class and responsibilities, to specific assignments that will keep your students engaged and focused.
The Production Classroom is the ultimate in project-based learning. Students learn to work collaboratively while setting goals and working towards a successful finished project. The course includes exercises and strategies to use with students to help assure their success in the production. Multiple examples and anecdotes help you to envision what the production classroom could look like in your room, performance space or theatre.
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PD COURSE
21st Century Skills Through Devising
by Allison Williams
Allison Williams leads the course: 21st Century Skills Through Devising. This course covers what devising is, why to do it, how to do it, and how your students can master the 21st Century Skills of collaborations and cooperation, critical thinking, creative thinking through devising.
High school is a great place to try devising with your students. But it’s not something you want to throw at your students without any preparation. Framework is important and this course takes you through a number of exercises you can take into the classroom tomorrow to help build a place of physical safety, a place where students work at making a lot of choices instead of waiting for the perfect choice, and a place where students feel comfortable making creative choices. The material also reviews the process of putting together a show from the idea/research stage to editing, to giving feedback.
Your students have what it takes to create their own material, collaborate with each other, and have a unique theatrical experience!
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PD COURSE
Teaching Musical Theatre in the Drama Classroom
by Colin Oliver
Colin Oliver leads this introduction to teaching Musical Theatre in the Drama Classroom.
In this course, you will learn how to build musical theatre into your dramatic courses of study. “Why might you want to do that? Singing is scary! You want me to teach my students how to do it? I don’t even know how to do it.” This course approaches musical theatre preparation performance much as we would approach preparing a monologue in drama. If you use script analysis in monologue preparation in your class, you can teach musical theatre.
By the end of this course, you’ll have a great, full-body physical warm-up, a student-driven research assignment, character development exercises, a little bit of musical theory, and a performance assignment complete with assessment.
So, join us for teaching Musical Theatre in the Drama Classroom. It’s as easy as Do-Re-Mi!
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PD COURSE
Google Tools in the Theatre Arts Classroom
by Anna Porter
Have you been wanting to find some new ways to enhance your classroom with technology? Have you been told you need to integrate technology in your classroom but don’t know where to start or what would even make sense to use in the drama classroom?
Whether you want to find some new ways to diversify your instruction and assessment, provide new resources and opportunities for your students, or simply needs some help with organization and communication, Google Tools has a treasure trove of resources ready for you to use today.
Instructor Anna Porter covers the tools of Google Forms, Photos, Calendar, Earth, Custom Search and Sites. Each lesson has video examples of how to use the tools as well as tips and resources for each module.
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PD COURSE
Tech for Non-Techies: Teaching Technical Theatre in Your Drama Classroom
by Josh Hatt
In this course, instructor Joshua Hatt shows you how to unpack your drama standards, articulate what you want your students to know and be able to do. The material explores how to incorporate lights, sound, makeup, staging, and costuming into your drama class at any grade level regardless of your school resources or unit structure. Bells and whistles? Awesome! Barely a classroom? We’ve still got you covered.
This 9 lesson series works from the basics and standards, though lighting, sound, costuming, staging, and makeup design, and culminates with a final project including rubrics, resources, and handouts.
A wise theatre technician once said: “the theatre mirrors life but technical theatre teachers us how to live.” Try to keep that statement in mind as you work through this course and see if we can make you a believer in all things technical theatre.
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PD COURSE
Marketing the Arts
by James Van Leishout
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.
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PD COURSE
Beyond the Basics: Rehearsal Strategies to Grow Your Actors
by Julie Hartley
The focus of the teacher-director should be not only on the quality of the show, but on the value of the experience offered to student actors. This course takes you on this journey through practical rehearsal strategies that apply an ensemble approach.
This course starts with those all important first rehearsals, explores warm ups, and looks at character development. We examine specific types of plays, like classical texts and comedy, and conclude with strategies to solve common rehearsal problems.
Go beyond the basics!
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PD COURSE
The Empathetic Classroom
by Steven Stack
Why should you take a class on empathy? And why is theatre the perfect vehicle for empathy?
Empathy, the more sought-after and inclusive cousin of sympathy, is the experiencing of someone else’s experience in the world. What it would be like if you were wearing their clothes, their life?
Teaching students to understand the clothes that they’re putting on, the characters and their lives teaches students not how to act but how to be. It allows the students to feel what someone else feels and experiences, which can and should translate to their fellow actors and peers away from the stage. It will lead to a stronger class connection, stronger performances and stronger students who will seek out understanding instead of isolation and fear.
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PD COURSE
Story Theatre
by Matt Webster
Instructor Matt Webster believes that Story Theatre is one of the most creative, most imaginative, most unique forms of theatre ever to make its way to the stage. His course introduces the style of theatre called story theatre, explores the steps needed to choose the best stories to perform, explains how to adapt a story into a script, and demonstrates a variety of story theatre styles from simple and contained to complex and crazy and everything in between.
When you are finished with this course, you’ll be able to bring nearly any story to any stage and present it to any audience. That is the power and promise of story theatre. Learn how to bring the page to the stage.
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PD COURSE
Maximizing Your Ensemble: Shoestring 101
by Michael Calderone
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.
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PD COURSE
Director's Toolbox 2: Teaching Students to Direct
by James Van Leishout
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.
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PD COURSE
Practical Approaches to Shakespeare in the Drama Classroom
by Julie Hartley
Shakespeare is one of the greatest resources a drama teacher can have: scenes packed with action; opportunities to explore comedy and physical theatre; rich themes and characters to act as springboards for devised theatre; the chance to work with our language at its finest and – most importantly – ideas that relate directly to the experiences and preoccupations of students.
Yet Shakespeare isn’t easy. The language can seem dense, and finding a way in can be tough – especially for drama teachers who have not themselves studied Shakespeare. That’s the goal of this course – to help teachers find a way in.
This course presents teachers with as many ways in to the exploration of Shakespeare as possible. Action scenes, themes, characters, different theatre styles, and devised theatre projects. Students will be armed with the tools they need to begin individually exploring monologues, or working together on scenes.
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PD COURSE
Play Adaptation Project
by Lindsay Price
Adaptation is a fabulous classroom project: it requires students to analyze, adapt, modify, plan synthesize, devise. All the higher order thinking skills.
But you can’t just throw a narrator into a script and call it a day. You have to have a preparation process leading up to the writing process.
In this course you will learn practical exercises and a path to prepare your students to take on their own adaptation project. We’ll look at the guidelines to adaptation, things to think about when choosing a text, how to analyze the source material and writing that first draft.
So join me, Lindsay Price, in the Play Adaptation Project.
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PD COURSE
Get Students to Embrace Failure in the Drama Classroom
by Lindsay Price
This course by Lindsay Price explores strategies you can use to encourage students to embrace failure rather than see it as a point of shame or something to hide from.
Our goal for students is to embrace a try/fail/try again/fail/try again/succeed formula. Each module in this course comes with exercises and activities that you’ll be able to take into the classroom right away.
It’s one thing to talk about embracing failure, it’s another to give students practical tools to help them achieve that goal. Join Lindsay in getting students to embrace failure in the drama classroom as we look at Failure from a Yes! perspective.
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PD COURSE
Exploring Viewpoints
by Erin Carr
Viewpoints is used to create dynamic moments of theatre by simply existing on the stage. However, Viewpoints is more than just an acting technique to understand your own physicality and more than a directing technique to create “ah-ha!” moments on stage. It is first and foremost the philosophy that to create an organic performance, you must see obstacle as opportunity, and that by simply standing in space, your creativity can spark.
This course by Erin Carr will help your students discover fresh impulses that motivate their performance in the moment. We will go through the Viewpoints technique, as created by Mary Overlie, and learn how to tap into kinesthetic awareness as individuals and as an ensemble. Through this style of play, students learn to release their thoughts on what they “should” do, and instead just respond organically to their surroundings and ensemble!
We’re going to break down each of the Viewpoints, there’s lots of visual demonstration, so you can see each Viewpoint in action, and I’m going to provide tips and side coaching examples.
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PD COURSE
Hands-On Theatre History: Creating a Modern Day Morality Play
by Wendy-Marie Martin
Who says theatre history has to be boring? Hands-On Theatre History: Creating a Modern Day Morality play is an interactive course by Wendy-Marie Martin, combining hands-on activities with research and analysis techniques leading to a full performance of the popular medieval morality play, Everyman.
This course gives students an overview of the medieval period and the various medieval play forms and teaches students the key points of storytelling and adaptation.
It includes dynamic individual and group exercises leading students from the first steps of the adaptation process through a final, full-class performance of Everyman—and proves, once and for all, that theatre history can be fun and exciting to learn.
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PD COURSE
The Dilemma Project
by Claire Broome
Moral dilemmas are not only faced by characters in gripping plays, but are also faced by our students. The project outlined in this course will help students develop their critical thinking skills through the use of one of the dilemma questions to shape a student written production.
If you had the choice to press a button and earn $25,000,000... but a species (not of your choosing) would become extinct, what would you do? More importantly, what would your character do?
Join drama teacher and playwright Claire Broome through this course which includes role-playing, Stanislavski’s Magic If, character creation, playwriting and staging.
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PD COURSE
Hands-On Theatre History: Anti-Realism
by Wendy-Marie Martin
This course is a mix of individual and group activities requiring students to use both their analytical and creative mind. It gives students an overview on the Anti-Realism movement of the late-19th and early-20th century, and introduces them to some key theorists, playwrights, and theater makers involved in this movement.
Together we will guide students through the wild world of the “isms,” more specifically Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Expressionism and Absurdism. We will introduce students to various manifestos and theories as we track the characteristics of each of our five “isms.” As we combine analysis and creative exercises, students bring their entire self to process and prepare to design an ISM Theme Park project, which they will share with the class at the end of the course.
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PD COURSE
Empathy 2.0
by Steven Stack
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.
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PD COURSE
Soft Skills, The Tangible Value of the Drama Curriculum
by Matt Webster
This course is about the fact that so-called soft skills are sought after and highly valued in professional work environments, educational settings, and in everyday social interactions. They're valuable life skills, but we can't always identify these skills within a standard educational setting, and yet, they are incredibly useful in education and beyond. That's why it's important to be able to identify these soft skills in the classroom and in the educational process and to recognize that these soft skills are being taught every day in the drama curriculum. We need to concentrate our efforts into making sure that these skills are identified and utilized within our classrooms. They are built into every arts curriculum a school offers, especially the theater arts.
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PD COURSE
Tech Knowledge: Integrating Tech Throughout Your Rehearsal Process
by Claire Broome
This course will help you integrate technical theatre earlier in the creative process to help reduce the stress of tech week, and make sure you have what you need before choosing a show. We will explore how to include your technical theatre team from day one and will help you have an easier experience throughout the rehearsal process and final performances.
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