Courses

PD COURSE
Coaching Improv
by Jennine Profeta
Second City performer and theatre educator Jennine Profeta is back and ready to help you take your Improv classes to the next level. It’s all getting students to perform - and how to be a great improv coach who can keep them supported and grounded (and having fun!)
In this course, you’ll learn the golden rules of improv. You’ll learn a bunch of improv games (great for warm-ups, teaching tools, and even for competitions). You’ll learn Jennine’s tips and tricks for what to look for when coaching and how to troubleshoot common issues.
The course is designed to help you improv as an ensemble and give you the know-how to coach with confidence whether it’s in the classroom or on the stage!
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Lesson Plans
LESSON PLAN
Building the Ensemble
by Lindsay Price
Use this lesson plan at the beginning of the year to introduce the concept of ensemble and what it means to work together.
Part One: Students participate and then reflect on exercises where they have to work together to make the exercise successful. They are given an Ensemble Expectations Handout.
Part Two: Students participate and then reflect on exercises where they have to work together as an ensemble in a theatrical context. Here the exercises add elements of character and story such as creating a family portrait, tableau, group objects, one word storytelling, and choral speaking.
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LESSON PLAN
Ensemble Community Building
by Dustin Loehr
To begin establishing an Ensemble by creating opportunities for students to:
1. Collaborate
2. Trust each other
Students will work together in small groups or in pairs to solve various challenges. Challenges involve using their non- verbal skills to communicate, working together through movement and support of weight and trust. Students will complete the following activities in this order:
1. Human Knott
2. Body to Body
3. Weight Sharing
4. Circle Trust
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LESSON PLAN
Group Playwriting
by Karen Loftus
In this highly structured exercise, students work in groups and use clearly defined goals to create the dialogue of a scene.
Each member of the group has an assigned task and contributes to the final creation.
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LESSON PLAN
Research Project: Acting Teachers
by Todd Espeland
Instead of presenting a lecture on influential acting teachers, students self-learn in this lesson plan. Have students research an acting teacher, prepare a presentation and teach an exercise in groups.
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LESSON PLAN
Shakespeare Setting and Soundscape
by Lisa Houston
In Elizabethan times, audiences at the Globe had to use their powers of imagination and listening to envision the worlds of Shakespeare’s plays. Today, modern audiences are treated to elaborate depictions of Shakespeare’s settings with expensive sets, lighting, projections, and sound. This lesson will test your students’ creative collaboration. They will design a set and soundscape in obstacle course form for one of Shakespeare’s plays using found objects, sounds, and actions.
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LESSON PLAN
Cross Curricular Lesson Plan: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
by Lindsay Price
This cross-curricular lesson plan uses a picture to illuminate a historical moment that we don’t often see. How does seeing the event in a different light change the perspective? This is a great lesson to enforce the idea that characters aren’t always what they seem - whether students are preparing a character to perform, or if they are writing a play.
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LESSON PLAN
Collaboration: The Negotiation
by Lindsay Price
It takes practice for students to get used to the idea of working together, crafting ideas together, and learning how to negotiate. In a collaboration everyone comes to the table equally, and that means there is a process of give and take. Use this exercise to have your students practice negotiating instead of following one or two leaders.
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LESSON PLAN
Dramatic Rules Game
by Kerry Hishon
The objective of this lesson is for students to think quickly and creatively by demonstrating a common rule or concept in an unusual way, using various theatrical techniques.
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Resources
RESOURCE
Tongue Twisters in the Theatre Classroom
45 pages of tongue twisters and activities.
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RESOURCE
Exercise: The Celebrity Gift Bag
Use this exercise to inspire creativity and quick thinking in your classroom.
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RESOURCE
Group Work Rubric
Use this rubric to assess group work.
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RESOURCE
Group Oral Presentation Rubric
Use this rubric to assess group oral presentations.
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RESOURCE
Research Project: Acting Teachers
In groups, students will research a well known acting teacher, give a presentation and teach an exercise.
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RESOURCE
The Open/Close Circle
This handout describes the open/close circle, with a list of circle questions to use with your class to start and end each class.
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RESOURCE
Group Up
This warm-up is great to integrate at the beginning of a year or term, to start creating community and cooperation within a class.
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RESOURCE
Engaging Students to Work Together
This handout will help you answer the question: How can you get your students to engage with each other, work with each other and include everyone?
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RESOURCE
Ensemble Experiences: Large Group
Each ensemble experience includes the title, a list of objectives you can choose from, the goal, guidelines, and instructions.
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RESOURCE
Ensemble Experiences: Small Group
Each experience includes the title, a list of objectives you can choose from, the goal, guidelines, and instructions.
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RESOURCE
00 - Theatre Trivia Overview
Theatre Trivia gives you trivia questions in 14 different categories ranging from Ancient Greek Theatre to Musicals. There is also an additional True/False quiz with questions from all of the categories.
Use these trivia questions as part of unit review, or as an introduction to material. Divide students into groups and give them a time limit to research the answers for a set number of questions. Use the questions as a model - and then have students write their own trivia questions for a specific theatre topic.
Distance Learning options are provided.
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