Performance
By Katelyn Tullis
Objective:
Students will demonstrate a deeper understanding for drama by performing a rehearsed drama work for their class and analyzing whether their peers’ and their own artistic choices met their artistic goals.
Prior Experience:
Students will draw upon all lessons in this unit as they practice the following skills: collaboration, acting, designing, script analysis, and “yes, and.”
Class Style:
*Live Zoom call.*
National Standards:
TH:Pr6.1.8a. Perform a scripted drama/theatre work for a specific audience.
TH:Re9.1.I.b. Consider the aesthetics of the production elements in a drama/theatre work.
Big Ideas:
- We can learn from our performances.
- Reflection helps us to understand our work better.
Enduring Understandings:
- Students will perform their short stories for the class.
- Students will understand how to respond to their own and other’s work positively and critically.
Essential Questions:
- What does it look like to be a respectful audience member?
- Why is it important to reflect on my work as a theatre artist?
- How can I prepare myself for a performance?
Materials
- Powerpoint containing any of the students’ design work
- This is something that you will need to make. You can decide whether to make one with all the groups’ work combined or whether to make separate powerpoints. You can then share your screen so that the rest of the class can see the students’ work.
- Physical Warmup
- Short breathing exercise
HOOK (10 minutes)
- We are going to warm up before our performances today. Performances might be something scary to you and that is okay. But if you learn to prepare your mind and body by warming it up, you will have an easier time.
- Go through the National Theatre warmups for body and voice as a class.
- You can screencast the videos on your screen and have everyone follow along.
- You could also learn the routines and do them yourself and encourage your class to follow along with you.
INSTRUCTION (5 minutes)
- Each group will get a chance to present their possible designs. Then we will watch their actors perform the scene. As the designers you get 10 minutes to present. The actors get 3 minutes.
- Remember to be a polite audience member. Your video should stay on so that we know you are being an attentive audience and giving your attention to each group member. You should stay muted when it isn’t your turn to present.
- After you present, we will do a short reflection on our work.
PERFORMANCE (60 minutes)
- Presentation Schedule: Group ____. (Each group gets 12 minutes. That means you can fit 5 groups into 1 hour).
- Designers have 5 minutes to present.
- Actors have 3 minutes.
- Discussion/Transition (4 minutes)
- I observed …
- I liked …
- I wonder …
- Repeat for all groups
RESPONSE (10 minutes)
- Part of learning is trying something new. But we must also reflect on our work so that we can recognize and congratulate ourselves and others on what we have done well, but also look back and think critically about what we can do better next time. For the next 10 minutes, I want you to reflect on what you have learned during this project and write a 250 word paragraph about it to be emailed to me before next class.
- Here are some questions that can prompt you. You don’t need to answer all of them. (You can put these questions on a powerpoint slide if you have visual learners who would appreciate seeing the questions while they write.)
- What did you discover about your artistic self?
- What did you learn about collaborating with your group?
- What did you learn from watching others performances?
- What was hard for you?
- What are you proud of?
- What is an area of this project that you would like to continue working at so that you can become better?
- Anything else you would like to write about this project.