What am I doing?

To train pupils in

1.       Close observation

2.       Eye – hand coordination

3.       Signing

Start with a Magic bag of objects. A child reaches into the bag and feels an object.

Where am I?

Where am I?

We behave in different ways in different places, e.g. a church or a Football match.

To establish place we can do so without the use of props by adopting a typical stance, attitude, or mood. The ability to do this greatly supports taking a role later on.   We will look at people in places and the purpose is to guess where they are by what they are showing to us. Teacher models the activity first.  A suggestion is to use the expanding model of places to do with home, neighbourhood, school, town/city, country. Again the roles are types. Going from what pupils know to what they do not in terms of experience and lesson content.

Who am I?

Who am I? Prep for Role Cards

Group Role Play in Pairs

Working in Pairs to prepare for  Group  role play in Drama

Teacher says: We are going to do an exercise to get us warmed up for the drama

Vary groups so that friendship group do not dominate.  Ask for agreement and assign by number or lots.  These short games (and improvs which follow) are usually   based on the pupils’ experience.

Pupils decide who is A+B. Teacher decides first positions and signal for start also   what final position and finish will look like.  Should pupils fold arms /sit on floor when finished?  Then do warm up   game.  Themes of warm up games  fall into categories such as:

§  Description (my hobby/ holidays/weekend)

§  Dreams (what I want to be…)

§  Wishes (what I’d like to see happen)

§  Persuasion (what I want from you is…)

Role-play preparation in Pairs

Clarify Desired outcome with participants.

1. A wants to go out for the evening. B does not. (Peer status)
2. Busy city street , an  apartment. A wants sofa by the window. B does not. (Peer)

Clarify External   Motive (my reason for my desired outcome: Why I want what I want?). This can be supportive or antagonistic.

Clarify Internal Motive which  can be hidden or open. Try both to see the difference in Tension.

3. Holiday: A wants to  go seaside, B wants to go to mountains.
4.  A wants to eat one dish.  B wants something quite different.
5. A wants to try foreign food. B wants the same as at home.
6. A wants to travel overnight. B wants to travel by day.

Clarify Status as power related, not economic.  High, equal, low .

7. An old person wants to live in cottage, B is social worker who wants her to move into   a new apartment. (High and low status)
8. A thinks football ( ballet)  is boring.  B thinks its great . Equal. Then high/low
9. A wants to join in the football row. B thinks its waste of time. Low /high

Clarify Attitude. This may be conscious  and behavioural. It may work against the character. 

10. A wants to play on Saturday in an amateur game. B wants to watch a professional game on TV. ( Leader)
11. A thinks there is life on another planet somewhere.  B does not.

12. A thinks its bad to  put wild animals in cages at the zoo. B does not.
13.  A and B are two crooks. A wants to break into bank at daytime .B wants to break in at night.
14. A and B are just out of prison.  A wants to go straight wants to commit another crime.
15. A is father/mother.  B is child.  A is complaining about the state of B’s room.
16. A thinks there are flying saucers B does not. A is scientist. B is journalist

Now that pupils have the idea, the teacher can make the improvisation more challenging by -

For a Pair Mime exercise, it can be helpful to give outcome at beginning.  Eg, two people see a coat on floor.  Each sees it.  A want s to pick up but is afraid they will be seen and accused of stealing.  B wants to pick up and see what is in the pockets.  In this example, both know that they will pick up the coat.  Later examples can dispense with this, but the structure of knowing the ending allows pupils to work on the motivation and intention without having to be too concerned with Spontaneity.  That can come later when they are less anxious.

Another take on this is to give the first  [or last] line of the Improvisation.

Intention Motivation Moral alibi: Parent takes teenagers savings.  Child is upset.  However, if Parent builds up the role with information that he was going to replace it and that he reason he took it was to pay deposit on a family holiday.  This constraint on the argument deepens the conflict so that it is not just slanging match.

Using Time to focus pupils in pair work .

Restrict the focus of time so that the drama on The Rising takes place in a safe    house which is being watched by the enemy on Good Friday.  

Never do fait-accompli events: E.g. - the gang robbing the bank scene.  Go back in time to where they are deciding to do this and one-person objects.  Possibility for change is at the heart of Improvisation.

Avoid fight scenes in the now time

When starting out, show three photos of stages in the fight (prior, during, after) or use time to go back and uncover the main reasons for the particular fight.

Put a time limit on the improv- 30 second video can help concentrate on salient facts.  Other possibilities- Use no word, no contact.

Two Pairs one speaking words of characters ' the other pairs speaking the real thoughts of the same character

Show the circumstances in the past, which led to an unlikely person to   commit a crime in the now –e.g. steal a wallet.

Pairs rehearse their piece.  Show the high point (approx four sentences) to whole group.

Pairs-Fours- Whole group.

Whole group in pairs talk about the effects of some rule or law that is causing hardship.  In fours, they talk about what should be done about it.  In whole group, they prepare a meeting to submit their suggestions with TIR as mediator.  The group is refused an audience with the power figure- so what do they do now?  Finish in small groups with role-play of the same groups in one year’s time.  Might be used   with History or Geography themes.

Whole group work

Now the group are ready for whole group work where they will play multiple roles independently and with teacher.

 

Under TIR as “chief” can work well when its use is setting the context for and ABC [ A Big problem we all Care about]. This use of the class one group can communities the problem and create  need to solve it. Pupils then in two’s take on a variety of roles [ in pairs often] of those being investigated. They return to whole group with TIR as chief to report findings and conclude. The whole group acts as bookends for the pair work in between.

Role for Teacher	Role for Pupils
Director of Hospital	Specialists
Police  chief	Detectives
Village Elder	Villagers
Chairperson	UFO  Committee

E.G. an ailing fishing community has a problem with whale landing on the beach that is still alive. What do they do about it? Some  want to make a tourist attraction and others want to kill it for blubber to sell. Interested parties would be politicians, unemployed fishermen, whalers, fish oil factory, and government employment specialists.

Colm Hefferon