Day 2 – Areas of the Stage & Blocking (Shorter Day)

National Standard:

TH:Pr5.1.I.a. Practice various acting techniques to expand skills in a rehearsal or drama/theatre performance.

Other National Standard Met But Not Assessed:

TH:Cr3.1.I.a. Practice and revise a devised or scripted drama/theatre work using theatrical staging conventions.

State Standards:

Standard L1.T.P.7: Identify and use appropriate vocabulary to describe kinds of stage spaces, stage directions, areas of the stage, and blocking techniques.
Standard L1.T.P.4: Use body to communicate meaning through space, shape, energy, and gesture.

Enduring Understandings:

1. Students will understand that vocab helps us communicate.
2. Students will understand that they are capable.
3. Students will understand that rules can help us make better performances.
4. Students will understand that I want them to succeed.

Essential Questions:

1. How do we create meaningful movement?
2. How much vocabulary is important to learn?
3. Why do we have rules?
4. How do we create?

Objective:

Students will begin to demonstrate understanding of stage terms and blocking techniques through a Simon Says game and a Stage Picture game.

Materials:
1. Blocking Rules
2. Large empty space
3. Drama 1 Daily Question
4.Projector, Projector Screen, Laptop, HDMI Cable, and HDMI to USB-C adaptor

Instructions:
Hook 1 – Daily Question (10 minutes)

1. Put the Drama 1 Daily Question up on the board and have the students scan the code and add their answer.

2. Read off answers and have the student attached to each answer raise their hand and give us a brief reason why they said that.

a. Suggested Question: What’s your favorite fictional term? (Ex: Mockingjay from Hunger Games, Auror from Harry Potter, Unbirthday from Alice in Wonderland)

Hook 2 – Simon Says With Specialized Commands (5 minutes)

1. “Today we’re going to start with a game of Simon Says. If I say “Simon Says” before a command, you should do it. If I don’t say “Simon Says” before a command, don’t do it. If you mess up, you’re out.”
2. “BUT, we’re adding a twist. I have some special terms for things to do. So do your best to figure out what the terms mean! Also, we’ll do three strikes before you’re out.”
3. Check For Understanding
4. Then play the game!

5. Suggested Terms/Phrases:

   1. Crankshaft – sit down
   2. Poppy – stand up
   3. Face front – face back
   4. Face back – face front
   5. Read – jump
   6. Watch – clap
   7. Etc
   8. BUT BE CONSISTENT IN WHAT A PHRASE MEANS

6. It may be helpful to demonstrate what some of the phrases mean, or you might just let them try and figure it out.

   1. For instance, start with Poppy and since they’re already standing, they stay in – so they figure that it’s something they were doing
   2. Then maybe for Crankshaft, sit down as you do it
7. Remind people they get three strikes.
8. After about 5 minutes, wrap up the game and have them “puddle” for instruction.

Instruction – Areas of a Stage (10 minutes)

1. “So that game was a little difficult mainly because you didn’t know what I meant by my terms. So with theatre, when we talk about parts of a stage, it can get confusing. If I say move right, do I mean my right or your right? If I say move up, do I mean to the back of the stage or to the front of the stage?”
2. “So we’re going to talk about the terms we have in theatre to make communication easier”
3. Start drawing the following diagram, we’ll add labels as we go, so start with no labels.

a.

4. “First of all, this is a diagram for a typical proscenium stage. That means there’s only

   audience on one side and there’s a “picture frame” around the stage. There are other kinds

   of stages, but we’ll just focus on this one for now.”

5. “So where is the audience on this diagram? We’ll put them down at the bottom. We also

   call this area “the House”. Now there’s a whole bunch of terms we could get into like proscenium, apron, pit, and all of that. But we’ll just focus on directions and general areas”

6. “Speaking of areas, who can guess what this area in the center of the stage is called?”

a. It’s called Center Stage, pretty simple haha

7. “Now going back to our right and left thing. Imagine you’re an actor on stage. You’re facing the audience. We talk about right and left from that image. So Stage Right is an actor’s right (while facing the audience) and Stage Left is an actor’s left (while facing the audience)”
8. Check For Understanding: See if this is making sense so far with a thumbs up or thumbs down.
9. “Now this next part comes from really old theatres. Nowadays, we have the audience on a ‘rake’, this means the seats in the back are higher up than the seats in the front. But before this happened, the stage was ‘raked’, meaning the back of the stage was higher up than the front of the stage. This was because the audience was level, so the raked stage helped the audience see the whole stage. From this, the back of the stage is called ‘Upstage’ and the front of the stage is called ‘Downstage’ because you’d literally be walking up or down the incline.”

10. Check For Understanding: See if this makes sense with a thumbs up or thumbs down.

11. “Finally, we have the four corners, their names are combinations of the directions. So like how South and East make Southeast, we combine either upstage or downstage with right or left. This makes Upstage Right, Upstage Left, Downstage Left, and Downstage Right”

Activity – Simon Says Stage Directions (10 minutes)

1. “Now that we know what the directions are, let’s test them out! We’re going to play Simon Says but with the stage areas. Since we know what our terms mean, it should hopefully be easier this time around!”
2. Define what the ‘stage area’ is, where the audience is, and clarify where each of the directions would be in this room for the activity.
3. “So if I said ‘Simon Says Upstage’, you’d all want to go to this upstage part (motion to the upstage part)”
4. Check For Understanding: See if this makes sense with a thumbs up or thumbs down.

5. “For the first little bit, no one will get out. But after a few directions, if you take too long

   or you go to the wrong place, you’ll be out”

6. Play a few easier directions, then explain when we move into elimination mode. Start

   getting faster and more complex.

7. If there’s time, maybe play a second or third time.

Blocking Rules (10-15 minutes)

1. “Now there’s another term we have in theatre called ‘blocking’. This basically means how you move around the stage. So if you’re watching a play and people are walking around and sitting down and going out the door – all of that is blocking.”
2. “In this class, we’re not really working with scripts and traditional performance like that. So instead of a director telling you what to do for your blocking, you kind of have to come up with it yourself! Also there are many cases where even in traditional performance, you come up with your own blocking.”
3. “So we’re going to chat about basic blocking rules. How you should move onstage.”
4. “I’d recommend getting something to take notes on so you can remember these later”
5. Open the Blocking Rules Presentation

6. Go through each slide, talking about the rule and give examples or clarifications as

   necessary.

7. Then summarize with the 6 Rules Slide

8. Now, move to the blank slide and see if the students can recall each of the 6 rules. Coach

   as necessary, but they should come up with all of them themselves. If they need help,

   flash the 6 Rules Slide for a few seconds.

9. Check For Understanding: See what questions students have about the rules of

   blocking. Clarify as necessary.

10. “Now this ‘upstaging’ thing can be a difficult thing to really understand, so let’s put it

into practice!”

Stage Picture (10-15 minutes)

1. “Okay, so I’ll stay over here and I will be the audience.”

2. “Then all of y’all will walk around the ‘stage’. If you want to practice moving in

   character, that’s great!”

3. “At any point, I might say ‘stage picture’! Then you have 2 seconds to freeze into a pose”

   1. If you are blocking anyone, being blocked, or have your back to the audience, you’re out!
   2. “I will walk all around the audience area to say who’s out”

   3. TIP: If you’re downstage, pick lower poses and if you’re upstage, pick higher

      poses, so we can see you!

4. “When you’re out, you get to join the audience and help me find who’s out”
5. Check For Understanding

6. Then play the game!

   1. If students are having a hard time, I may provide additional sidecoaching

   2. Additionally, after a while, it will probably be helpful to have students who are

      out join back in.

Wrap Up (5 minutes)

1. When there’s just a few minutes left in class, wrap up the game.
2. Thank students for participating today!
3. See if they can recall the 6 rules of blocking!