Drama - Section A - Q3 and 4

Drama – Section A, Q3. Analyse how you developed your own skill to tackle problems. You should refer to at least one occasion in the preparation period when you used acting skills to overcome a particular problem. Problems • Character issues (over acting, learning an accent, being the character / role, lines) • Through rehearsal and practice, accent you could record yourself, look in the mirror, watch TV with American accent in it etc. Lines – break them down, key points, putting together line and action. • Interaction with other characters (rehearsal, fight scene or piece of action, dialogue intercutting) • Increase rehearsal, work out choreography – slow down the action and then slowly speed it up until the action works, split speech up – one person keeps talking, regardless of interruptions. Use props in practice to help and you’re familiar with them, so you don’t actually hit people in the real thing. BE SPECIFIC! TALK ABOUT PARTICULAR MOMENTS! Section A – Question 4. Evaluate your success in creating engaging Drama. You should support your answer with reference to at least one particular moment from your final performance. BE SPECIFIC! TALK ABOUT PARTICULAR MOMENTS! Positive Negative Remembering lines, being in character Forgetting your lines Character creation – facial expressions, gesture, body language Your other actors misleading you / or vice versa Creation of a bond with the audience – getting the audience to laugh in a comedy, in the murder mystery the audience are engaged when they’re asking questions Coming out of character Remembering choreography Ad lib, working around a problem

Drama - Section A - Q2

Theatre In Education The first thing we had to decide, as a group, was the theme and what we would teach the younger students. In my group we came up with the idea of raising awareness about smoking and drugs. We were working with Yr X. We decided to trial a range of different games and activities to introduce this subject. We came up with the idea of using: game, a short play, trust activities, hot seating, forum theatre (where people from the audience tried to resolve the issues), a quiz, audience interaction. We trialled this with the rest of the class to see what was easy to explain and play. Kingston University came in to run a workshop about how to run a workshop. From this we came up with a structure, which we put into a lesson plan and decided on the best TIE workshop. In the play I was a X (smoker, bully, neek etc). I developed my character by thinking about (talk about facial expression, vocals, body language, use of costume / prop etc). I rehearsed this with my group and we ran the workshop with the rest of the class in preparation for the performance. Murder Mystery For this I was given a character profile by my teacher. This had my job, name, friends of my character and enemies. We also all had different secrets, for example XXX (I was an undercover police officer). We then hot seated one another, to practice improvising and to get used to cross-examination, which would be part of the show. It helped me to understand how my character fitted into the story of the mystery. The killer wasn’t revealed until the end of the show, so no one knew if they were going to be him and this increased tension and our ability to create a secure alibi. I used the profile to gain clues to my character. I decided he was XXX and I wanted to show this element of his character by XXX. (E.g Jay was an alcoholic so he was clumsy, falling over things, he used slow, slurred speech and carried a bottle to show this.)

Drama - Section A - Question 1

One of the pieces I acted in this year, was Sympathy for the Devil. A Murder Mystery that was set in the 1960s. I played the character of XXXX (Give the name and some detail – e.g Terrance Shrimp, a fashion photographer.) Our target audience was parents, siblings, teachers and other students. It took place in the school hall, and as well as using the stage we also took turns in visiting 6 tables out of 12 where the audience sat, watching the Murder Mystery and having dinner. In terms of style, we tried to make it as naturalistic as possible, but because it was a Murder Mystery it had to follow a set format. Interrogations took place on the stage where everyone could see and hear, but we went into the audience where they could cross-examine us. As well as improvising around character notes, I also created the costume for my character. Period Style Genre Target Audience Performance space Technical / design elements used I created a TIE piece on the theme of XXX (drugs, bullying). Our target audience was students in Yr 6 at our local Primary school (St Marys), we visited there and used their hall space. For when we were doing the forum theatre, we were end on. The period for this piece was the modern day. The style we used in our forum theatre was slight over exaggerated in an effort to engage our audience. When we were facilitators, out of role, we had to be extra nice to the students.