Items tagged "Technical Theatre"

Join drama teacher Claire Broome and explore the basics of lighting, including lighting systems and instruments, lighting plots, how to record a lighting cue, and alternative sources of lighting. You’ll learn some practical, hands-on ways of using lighting in your classroom or theatre, whether you have a lighting system or not.

This course is packed with hands-on examples, activities for your students, and videos to develop your students’ understanding. Find out why lighting is such an important character in a production.

Instructor Ray Palasz leads this introductory course in using SketchUp in the classroom.

This course is broken down into five easy modules. One, downloading the program. Two, getting started with using the program. Three, drawing two and three-dimensional objects. Four, using the 3D warehouse, which will save you and your students tons of time. And five, a sample assignment and assessment for your students.

Each module also comes with a handout with visuals from SketchUp to guide you through the process. You will learn how SketchUp can add so much to your program.

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.

This introductory course in Stage Makeup is brought to you by Matt Webster, and covers all the basics. You’ll learn the tools you can use to build a makeup kit, how to match skin tone, what are the shapes of the face and how those shapes affect everything you do with makeup.

You’ll learn about highlight and shadow, blending, basic corrective makeup, safety and hygiene, and lastly, tips for teaching makeup. And throughout, sample exercises are included so you have the information you need to bring stage makeup into the drama classroom.

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.

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.

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).

This is an introductory mini-unit to lighting that can be achieved whether or not you have a lighting system. Students will work toward being able to demonstrate their knowledge of lighting effectiveness.

The questions of the unit include: How can light affect a scene? How can lighting affect the audience? What is the mood of the scene? How does lighting play a part in creating mood? How can you use shadows onstage? How does color impact the scene?

This is an introductory mini-unit to sound that you can use whether or not you have a sound system. Students will work toward being able to demonstrate their knowledge of sound effectiveness.

The questions of the unit include: What is effective sound? What sounds and music do we need in order to make our scene effective? How will we know our sound cues are effective?

If the costumes in a play are going to be effective, we need to be thoughtful about how we use them.

In this mini-unit, students will demonstrate their understanding costume effectiveness and address the following questions: What is the role of costume in the performance? How does color contribute? How does the style of costume affect a performance? How does costume indicate setting? Do you need costumes in a scene?

This is a mini-unit on staging. Along with the driving question for the unit, students will explore about how staging affects the performance. Students will draw a plot design (ground plan) to emphasize the need to plan where scenic elements will be placed. They will also practice taking cues from the script, in order to create staging.

This is a student centred mini-unit on makeup design. Makeup is useful in transporting an audience to a different world.

The purpose is for students to understand that makeup is a tool that theatre technicians can use in order to contribute to effective performance aesthetics; to understand basic makeup rules and care instruction; to understand how to complete a makeup design plot; to look at a project and figure out for themselves what they need to succeed.

Once students have completed the five Tech Theatre Units (Lighting, Sound, Costume, Staging, Free Play Makeup), you can give them this culminating project.

Depending on how you structured your technical theatre unit, you can adapt this project to suit your needs and context.

Up to this point, all the work in the units have been exploratory. This is where students will apply their skills and knowledge.

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.

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.

In this unit, students will take on the role of the costumer, which is different from a costume designer. It introduces costuming concepts in order to execute a costume. No complicated sewing is required, which is great if you don’t have the background, the access, or the resources to have a class of students create costumes.

Instead of making costumes from scratch, as a designer would, students will create costumes from stock, borrowed items, or low-cost finds. They will take finished products and adapt them into what they need to create the right atmosphere.

In order to help with their adaptations, students will try different distressing techniques and learn three SIMPLE stitches that they’ll be able to use over and over again. It’s a valuable tech theatre skill to teach students how to execute on costumes when you (and they) don’t sew!

Students will learn the details a stage manager must be aware of as well as how to communicate those details in a clear and productive way.

Students analyze a work of art to find the visual details required for that “production” and create an organized list to communicate those details. Students then apply those skills to a written script as the stage manager.

Stage Managers have numerous responsibilities in the production process. This lesson will focus in on the things a stage manager does prior to and during blocking rehearsal from preparing for rehearsal, to taking blocking notation, to communicating important notes to other members of the production.

Lumber is expensive, so just letting the students have a go at building a stage flat could get pricey. Why not let them “try it out” by constructing the cheapest flat they’ll ever make. This lesson plan guides students through the identification and construction of the various elements of a stage flat (both Hollywood and Broadway) using paper, drinking straws, and glue.

In this lesson, students will take what they learn about the different types of props and how props are created or acquired in order to apply it to a specific project. Using their critical thinking skills, they’ll have to invent, design, and create a science fiction style prop for a hypothetical show.

To create ambiance is to define the feel, mood, and tone of a play. Light and sound can change ambiance drastically. A castle in dark shadows will look gloomy and mysterious, while a castle in bright light will appear magical. In this lesson, students will analyze the use of sound to create and change the ambiance of a production.

It’s important for students to be aware of both onstage and offstage theatre roles. But applying stage management tasks to a classroom setting is not always easy to do. The Stage Management Calls Game gives students a practical way to hear and react to the various things a stage manager may say during a rehearsal or technical rehearsal.

Students will work in small groups to devise a one-minute long theatrical piece from a prompt. They will create a performance, create a prompt script, assign Stage Manager and Technical Operator roles, rehearse the piece, and perform it for the rest of the class. Depending on your time allowance, this lesson could be completed in one class using only items found in the classroom; or this lesson can be spread over four classes (one class to assign and plan, one class to rehearse, one class as a technical/dress rehearsal, and one class as a performance and discussion/reflection class).

In this ELP, students problem solve common tech theatre issues.

Use this poster for your scene shop - to keep actors and crew focused on safety.

Have students brainstorm alternative lighting options for a scene when you can’t use a traditional lighting rig. What do they come up with? How can they experiment with existing lighting sources? (For example: flashlights) Sometimes their options will be the best options.

A guide to the different types of props, and a sorting activity to help students identify props by category (scenic props, hand props, set dressing).

Here is one way to set up a stage management staff at your school. You know your students the best and you know that some can handle more responsibility and some may be better suited to certain tasks. Make sure your PSM is the one who represents the team especially to the actors.

How do you teach tech, or use tech in your productions when you don’t have the expertise or the equipment? How do you make it work? How do you problem solve? Topics include Lighting, Set Design, Costumes, and Sound.

Lindsay Price talks to Keith Rollins, one of the winners of the DTA Travel Scholarship in 2017, about his experience at FX University, a hands-on, professional training event covering prosthetics application, makeup effects, mask making, sculpture, mould making, airbrush and more. See some of Keith's work and hear what he learned in this interview.

Access the Practical Technical Theatre digital programs. Included in your DTA membership, with 10 programs to choose from. Click the link to access - includes unique codes for student access to videos and handouts.