Assignments

Assignment #1: Now that we have had some time to build trust in the room. It's time to take on a greater challenge and use what we create to devise a performance. 

Step 1: We'll be experimenting with different poses. Remember safety is number 1. Not everyone will be fully capable of trying every pose. Sometimes it's best if there is a weight/size difference between partners, but most importantly it's best to be physically comfortable with your partner.  If you aren't sure about a pose, be sure to ask and always get a spotter if there's a chance someone will get hurt. READ the directions before you try!

See this document for some Acro-yoga poses to try: LINK

You will also be given a laminated list of 26 balance-counter balance positions to try. 

Try everything you can, but you only need 5-7 poses that you can successfully do for the assignment. 

By the end of DAY 1 be sure to have chosen 5-7 poses that you can do without a spotter and that you can hold for 5 seconds. 

Step 2: Transitions. Watching you awkwardly get from one position to the next is not going to look like a performance. You need to think about putting the positions in an order that makes sense and thinking about how to make the transitions smooth. How will you go from position 1 to position 2. Make a decision and practice until you can get through all 5-7 without having to remind each other what's next. 

Step 3: Perform for your peers. Remember straight lines and angles look best. Hold each move for 5 seconds. If you fall, get up and keep going. Stay focused and keep each other safe!

Step 4: Your peers will assign you an emotion. Now it gets interesting... based on your concept, you will be given an emotion. You need to go away and find a song that you feel connects to that emotion. 

Step 5: Now you need to add story and emotion to your body and face. Perhaps you need to tweak your transitions to make them fit your story. Add a beginning and an end. At least one person must freeze on stage. Make sure your whole body holds this emotion the whole time. Practice till you are happy with your performance. 

Step 6: Add costumes. Be sure to practice in your costume. 

Step 7: Perform live and this will be videoed. 

Step 8 Add the rough and polished versions of your performance to your portfolio. Title it, "Physical theater, devised performance."  [How to add a video: Find the video in your class's google drive folder. See stream. Watch a bit. Then when you are in your slide, go to INSERT, From DRIVE, Recent and you'll see the video you want to choose. Click on it.]

Step 9: Reflect:

• What does it mean to devise a performance?

• Does your performance clearly convey the emotion you were given?

• When you watch your video, what are you proud of? 

• If you could perform again, what would you change or do differently? 

Assignment #2: Tableau Director: HEADLINE NEWS

Sample: LINK

Drama Standards:      

Production (Summative)

Responsibility (Learning Behavior) 

GOAL: Demonstrate your understanding of the criteria of tableau while trying your hand at blocking a scene. 

Step 1: Look for a news headline that interests you on CNN, Singapore News, your hometown. Any current news headline. 

Step 2: Read the article and look for themes. 

Step 3: Decide how many actors you will need to represent your news story in tableaux. 3 to 5 is usually good. However, many actors you choose, you must use all of them in every picture. 

Step 4: Direct your actors on stage or in a space with a neutral background. Look carefully for the 5 criteria of tableau. You are the only one being assessed here, so make sure your actors are giving you what you want. 

Step 5: Take a photo of each of your 3 to 4 tableau photos and email or airdrop them to yourself. 

Step 6: Open a new blog. Title it "IN THE NEWS". Start with the actual news headline at the top. Insert each photo and write a caption to represent what the audience will see. Captions should be powerful and not just describe what the audience will see.

Step 7: Edit for spelling, grammar and punctuation. 

Step 8: Insert the actual source article as a link at the bottom. 

Step 9: Label the blog gr8,drama. 

Step 10: Check you live view. Is the font size large enough? Make sure it's visually appealing. 

Emotional Monologue

Editing your Peer's Monologue

Your peer was asked to write an emotional story, they did not know they were writing a monologue that you would have to perform. Treat their monologue like a gift. Respect the story and the emotion, but now it's time to make it your own and to use it as a vehicle to show your acting skills. You may need to exaggerate and build on the story and that's okay. You also need to make it fit who you are as a person. You are not expected to play a different gender so you have to be able to relate to the story both physically and emotionally. 

EDITING PART ONE - Tightening up the writing

1. Cut for time. The monologue even with pauses and extra emotion should be under two minutes, but more than 1 minute. Cut out long explanations and rambling. Look for the main story. 

2. Remove the Vagueness: For the purpose of the Liar's Bench, I asked the writers to remove gender, use words like sibling and "the place I used to live." It's time to be more specific so remove the vague and make connections that work for you. 

3. Word Choice: Some words we may write, but you would never choose to say the word when you are upset and talking to a friend. Make sure it sounds natural. 

4. Short Sentences: When performing, short sentences work better for breath control and are easier to memorize. They also just seem more emotional. The punctuation walk should have shown you where the long sentences were. 

5. Bump Up the Emotion: It's okay to exaggerate. Maybe your friend told you about a story of being nervous before getting on stage or an argument with their parents. You need to turn this into DRAMA! This should be the worst case of stage fright ever recorded and an all our blow out with parents. 

EDITING PART TWO - Adding the drama

1. Divide your monologue into three parts. An introduction, body, and conclusion. These may not be evenly divided and that's okay. But make sure there is a clear intro to your story, the body where you tell what happens and then you should be building to a conclusion. If these are not obvious, you may need to do some restructuring. 

2. Add a Hook: Audiences decide in 4-6 seconds if you are worth listening to. You need to draw them in. You may have lucked out and the first sentence may be amazing, but 99% of you will need to write a hook. A "hook" can shock, inspire, ask a rhetorical question, but it should not just be plot!

3. Concluding Line: As you finish your monologue, you want to form a really powerful tableau. The final line should really connect with your audience. Show your vulnerability. You will need to make direct eye contact.  Leave them wanting more. 

4. Find your Heart Line: A heart line is where your character exposes exactly how they are feeling. This is where you pull at the audience's heartstrings. We need to care about your character! A heart line should be at the most pivotal moment in your monologue. It should be short! It should include a word that deals with feelings. It is generally said in the first person. My rule of thumb: It's short enough to yell! (even if that's not the emotion you are going for.)  Examples: 

• Rage exploded inside of me. 

• I am alone. 

• I want to disappear. 

• Fear froze my limbs. 

• My confidence evaporated like water. 

MOTIVATION - Production Plan part 1

1. Why are you telling this memory? 

2. What is your emotional trigger? A nightmare, a photo, packing boxes, yearbook...

3. What is your setting? What set will you need to establish this?

4. Choose a projection for the background. (Consider size/quality)

SLATE

• The purpose of a slate is for the audience and judges to see the real you before you become your character. However, you also want to lead the audience to believe you are a confident but social person. 

• Your slate should include your name, title of monologue, thank the author and thank the audience. 

• Walk to the center of the stage. Smile. Present your slate. Smile. Walk to starting place. Do not walk and talk. Control any nervous fidgets. SMILE. 

TEN SECONDS OF SILENCE

• The purpose of the 10 seconds of silence is to set an emotional tone to your monologue. 

• First, you need to be absolutely confident about what the emotion is that you are trying to convey at the beginning. 

• Be careful that you do not just include action and then get to the emotion at the end of the ten seconds. 

Obviously, you need to learn your lines, but there is so much more to it…

·       Be sure to understand what your character is saying and how they feel.

·       Your 10 seconds of silence needs to set a mood. Do not just sit there and then start talking. Do not find your trigger and then start talking. Let us feel your emotion.

·       Even within your monologue remember silence is powerful. Don’t rush your lines. Use silence/dramatic pauses effectively.

·       Eye contact is powerful. It creates a bond with your audience. They cannot look away. Do NOT avoid eye contact. Make them uncomfortable.

·       Avoid movement that doesn’t have a purpose. Often nervousness comes out as swaying or walking for no reason. Plan every move and gesture!

·       Breathing can be powerful. Use your breath control to show how the character is feeling.

·       Spend the majority of your time planning your intro and conclusion. Use silence and movement to capture the mood before you start to talk. Be sure to end powerfully (with eye contact) and plan a powerful freeze. Do not just stop talking.

·       Look at your RUBRIC and consider where the marks are going and then you will know how to focus your energy!

·       Face your audience. Cheat open! Your audience needs to see you and you need to project your voice. Make sure your hair does not get in the way.

·       Be loud. Use volume as a tool. If your audience is looking bored, hit them with a loud line to get their attention. If your judges/teachers cannot hear you, they cannot grade you!

·       Use your stage. Plan props & set to establish your location. Use different levels. Think about what is

·       Think about costuming as being intentional to help create character/mood.

·       The biggest compliment you can receive is to be told: “It felt like you were in the moment and the words were your own.” THIS IS YOUR GOAL!

Assignment: Live Theater Review 

(This is assigned two months into the semester)

Due Date: Two weeks after the performance you watched. Must be posted before May 7, 2018

RUBRIC: Use the rubric as a checklist to make sure you have covered the important areas of the assignment. RUBRIC

Give your review and snappy title to attract an audience!

Paragraph 1: Should include the basic details of the performance written in paragraph form. 

• Performance title 

• Theater Name/Location            

• Date reviewed                            

• Names of director, writer, author if based on a book.                                               

• Number of Stars (1 to 5):             

Now it’s your turn to be part of the tradition!

CHOOSE YOUR LINES: Go to the link and put your name next to your chosen lines. You'll see they are colored and colors should not be split up. Choose at least 4 lines. One group or two lines of two or four lines of one. Put your name next to each line even if they are the same color so no one gets confused and chooses your lines. DO NOT ERASE SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME AND PUT YOUR OWN.  We can go back in the history and see when this is done. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmC0xcajf1NTdHZwSjFKTkJ4dXduLVZsTnlMckNIaWc&usp=sharing

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION:  Ideally you will film your line while on vacation at some amazing location. That doesn’t mean you cannot film in Singapore. However, YOU CANNOT FILM ON CAMPUS. (If you have a really good reason, you need to get permission from me IN ADVANCE!)

PRACTICE YOUR LINE:  You would not believe how many people change a few words or mess up their line. We will put the caption with your line and you look ridiculous if you have said the wrong words. Once you've selected your lines email them to yourself and put it on your phone for easy access. That way you may find your self spontaneously somewhere awesome and you can film! You also need to think about tempo, tone, and rhythm...if you don’t know the poem … go back and YouTube “The Places You’ll Go - Burning Man” and find your line. 

COSTUME: No school uniform. Take a risk. Be creative or at least let it fit the line. I will not give a 4 for costume if you are just in your normal clothes sitting around your backyard or bedroom. 

VOLUME IS OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM:  In the past, I have given students the choice whether to live film or voice over later. 90% of the time there is a volume issue. Either background noise or the actor is too quiet. From now on, your only choice is to film and then add the voice later in editing. 

FILMING:  Be sure to film horizontally not vertically and MOST IMPORTANT... Add 3-4 seconds of silence at the beginning and ending. This is so we can edit it together and not lose any of your talking. It won't work if you don't do this! 

EXPORTING AND SAVING: If you did any editing, you’ll need to export the file as a quicktime or mov. file. Do not give me an iMovie Project as they cannot be read.  Save file as the number of your sentence and your name. Example 23_Sarah. This is really important as it sorts the files to be the right order automatically. 

HANDING IT IN:  Do not wait until the due date to hand it in as you will not have time for any feedback. You can upload your video to drive and send it to me at any time. Make sure the permissions are set to anyone at SAS so I can share it with the person making the video. 

Sample: 1 LINK  2 LINK

GRADING RUBRIC: