Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Homework Thursday 27th November

Please make sure your blogs are up to date. 

Below are the tasks set in this week's lesson. Please answer the questions, ensuring that you use THEATRE VOCABULARY.

TASK 1 – MONOLOGUES

You were asked to think about your favourite character that you've worked on so far.

You we asked to write a monologue for that character that stays with the same style of the play. 

Either take a photo of your monologue and upload it, or type your monologue onto your blog.

You then worked in pairs to stage the pieces. 

Q- What choices did you make when staging your monologue? Think about how you used your voice and physicality. 

Q -How did the monologue task help you to understand the play further?

You performed and watched your peer's work.

Q- What monologue performed by a peer worked well and why? What had they written about?

Q - Who performed their monologue successfully and why? 


TASK 2 - East End research devising task

Using the articles given to you about the East End, you created another East End Tale in a small group. This was how the writer created EET originally.

You were given one of these articles:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/the-moment-gang-shoots-volley-of-fireworks-at-a-passing-police-car-in-east-london-9850706.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/fancy-cockroaches-with-your-curry-bugs-found-scuttling-along-floor-of-indian-takeaway-9763423.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thousands-of-fish-found-mysteriously-floating-dead-in-east-london-park-lake-9751637.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-appeal-after-black-man-racially-assaulted-in-childrens-playground-9727163.html


Q - What choices did you make with your group to make one of these articles into an East End Tale? Why? 

Q - How did you make the new tale you created like the tales in the play?

Q - Which character did you play and how?

Q - Which theatre skills did you use to perform the tale? 


You need to complete another DEVELOPING assessment sheet for the lesson:

(You were given these in the lesson, either upload the handwritten sheet, or complete on here)






Wednesday, 19 November 2014

Things to start collecting for the show...

I am going to start a list on this post of things we will need for the performance. Things will be added from week to week  - keep checking!

It will not be massively prop heavy, however their are a few key items I would like you to start gathering ready for rehearsals. 


Things to find:

  • A torch (everyone will need one)
  • An umbrella (everyone will need one)



Developing movement for characters

I have found these videos on the National Theatre channel on youtube. There are lots of excellent short films from warm-ups, to directing. 

Here is a link to the page:

National Theatre Videos

Here are some interesting videos on creating characters. Watch these and make some notes. How might the information in these films be useful when rehearsing and creating a role?







Physical Theatre

The final piece will rely on physical theatre and the work of a tight ensemble to tell the story of 'East End Tales'.

Here are some clips and information on Physical Theatre. You should do some of your own research too.

Frantic Assembly are a UK based physical theatre company:


'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time' uses physical theatre throughout and relies on the work of the ensemble to tell the story. Here are some clips for you to watch. 











Ensemble theatre

Homework Thursday 20th November

You need to write about the lesson this week, reflecting on the exercises you have done and explain how you have developed your understanding of the play, characters and themes. 

You were given the marking criteria for DEVELOPING for this project. You need to complete the sheet, you would have started this in the lesson – the sheet must be uploaded to your blog.



Task 2 (45/60 mins)

Mr Worden set you homework last week:

Bring to class next week  ideas, character research and drawings of the characters you are exploring. 

This should have been put onto your blog last week.

This week you then:

In groups you shared your homework. What had other people in your group done?

You then created a response to the tale you were working on and including the research you had completed for your homework.

You were asked to continue to be guided by the style of the play – it should feel physical – you couldn't use any props/chairs etc.
  • What did you develop and create? How?
  • How did your homework help you develop the tale practically?
  • Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

Task 3

In new groups of 5/6 you re-read Tale 6. You had to underline all the people mentioned e.g brother, landlord, mother…

  • What did you underline in the text? - take photos, or write the list. 
Individually you decided on a character they you had underlined to create a role – on – the – wall for. You were given the sheet for this in the lesson. Upload this on the blog. 

You wrote:

INTERIOR: Things the character thinks and feels.

EXTERIOR: Things that people say about them, what they look like.

As some of these characters only exist in a mention by another person you had lots of creative freedom to develop the roles.




Using the roles you had developed you created some scenes that show how these characters exist outside the play. 

For example, the character in tale 6 speaking is waiting for his brother to finish work. They might explore a scene of the brother at work. You needed to make up what he does etc. You needed to focus on creating roles that are believable and should keep in mind the context of the play, the east-end.
  • What scene did you develop?
  • What drama skills did you use to do so?
  • Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)
You then SHARED the work with the class and reflected.


  • What was effective about the characters they had decided to explore? 
  • Did the scene help you understand anything new about the play or another character?

Last task:

You should continue to explore the East-End through research. Keep uploading this to your blog too! 



Thursday, 13 November 2014

Homework Thursday 13th November

Today you have continued to explore the text.

Here are the exercises you did. For each one you should write what you learnt about the play by doing the task. Don't just describe the exercise. Say why you made the choices you did:

Working on the Prologue.

You created the prologue in pairs by adding in the other character’s lines.
What questions is the taxi driver asking and answering, what lines aren’t in the text?

You needed to think about staging this with imagination (not sat one behind the other, with the driver holding an imaginary steering wheel).

You had time to create, rehearse and then share some/all and discuss.

What did you create and why?
What did another pair do that was effective? 

Hot-seating 
You continued to explore the TAXI DRIVER.

You did a whole class hot-seat.

Why is hot-seating an effective technique to use in a rehearsal? 

What did you learn about the driver?

What questions did you ask? 

Ensemble taxi driving:
Whole group activity to explore being a taxi driver.
You all became taxi drivers and created some improvised movement, thought of some lines that the driver might say. 
Developed moments of ensemble work – could potentially be part of the final piece.

Explain what you did as a taxi driver. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

What did other people do?

How did you work as an ensemble? 


TALE 8 

In groups you read through TALE 8. 

You needed to underline anything that suggested a location, weather, or atmosphere to them.

Write some examples of what you underlined OR take some photos of your script.

CREATE/REHEARSE
Once you'd done this you went through anything you'd underlined and created a series of sounds and some movement to develop the scene. 

You were asked to focus on creating the atmosphere and think about being the buildings, the weather, and the atmosphere.

You were allowed to use some of the lines from the text – however you might have decided to just use your sounds and movements to tell the tale.

You then SHARED the work with the class and reflected.

What was effective about the sounds they had decided to use?
What was effective about the movement they had decided to use?
How did the work make you feel?
What could have been developed further?
Are their many similarities in what groups decided to do?
Do the sounds and movement have the same impact as just reading out the lines? Is it a better way to help tell this story?


Mr Worden has set you the following for homework:

He put you into groups and has asked you to come to the class next week with ideas, character research and drawings of the characters you are exploring.  THIS SHOULD ALSO BE PUT ON YOUR BLOG.