by Savannah Fillerup
Objective
● Students will be able to communicate meaning using space and staging in movement by creating tableaus that use levels, proximity, spacing, and focus to tell a story.
Standards
● Utah
○ Standard 7-8.T.P.8: Identify and use appropriate vocabulary to describe
kinds of stage spaces, stage directions, areas of the stage, and basic
blocking techniques.
○ Standard 7-8.T.P.4 - Communicate meaning using the body through space,
shape, energy, and gesture. ● National
- ○ TH:Pr4.1.7.a. Consider various staging choices to enhance the story in a drama/theatre work.
- ○ TH:Pr6.1.8.a. Perform a rehearsed drama/theatre work for an audience. Materials needed
● Chairs stacked so there’s room to move
Hook/Warm-up
● Warm-Up Question
○ Who in your family do you feel closest to?
● Name check-in/movement review
○ Uninhibited/inhibited movement?
- ● Stretch and shakeout
● Tableaux Game
- ○ First, explain what a tableau is—a frozen image that tells a story in some way.
○ Have the students walk around the room, then when you yell freeze, freeze in an interesting pose. Choose one student for everyone to create a tableau around. Then choose one student in the tableau to come out of it and tell a story based on what they see in the tableau.
Instruction
● Stage Directions
○ Draw on the board/explain up, down, center, right, and left stage
terminology.
○ Play Simon Says moving to different areas of the stage
● Go through power point and pull people up to show composition for each, then
have someone tell the story of what’s going on. Then, change something about the composition and ask them how that changes the story? Then assign a director to position people and someone else tell the story.
○ Levels
- Three people in a line center stage
Person on a block upstage center, person in the center, person
sitting downstage center ○ Proximity
- Three people in a clump upstage right, one person downstage left
- Move to centerstage and see what that changes ○ Spacing
- Two blocks downstage left, one person sitting on them looking upstage at person centerstage
- Person sitting on blocks is now hiding behind them ○ Focus
Two people downstage right with rightmost person looking at leftmost person, left person looking back at person upstage left. Start with that person just looking forward, then change it so they’re looking back.
Practice
● Get in groups to make three tableaus (beginning, middle, and end of a story) that make use of all four terms. Have them pick a stock character and stock setting from your classroom reserve (slips of paper, dice, etc.)
- ○ Tableaus should change staging to show the beginning, middle, and end of a story.
- ○ Review with them story structure briefly. Invite them to FIRST pick an objective for their main character. Beginning should introduce a conflict, middle should be them trying to solve the conflict, end should be them trying to resolve the conflict.
● Give them ten minutes to make the tableaux and be ready to show it to the class
Assessment
● Each group should show their three tableaus and then have a discussion with the class.
- ○ What story did you see being told?
- ○ How did the staging help tell the story?
- ● Submit a grade in “staging” on a scale of 1 (below standard) to 4 (advanced).
Challenge
● Try people watching next time you’re somewhere with a lot of people (lunch, passing period, advisory, grocery shopping, practice, etc.). Even when you can’t hear people’s conversation, what stories can you learn about the people you watch based on how they’re positioned next to each other? Be prepared to share next time.