Recently, I’ve been crafting a model aimed at assisting my students in generating fresh performance content. The objective is for this model to also serve as a beneficial resource for other drama educators and their students. This model is a work in progress, a “living” idea that thrives on your valuable input. So, I encourage you to reach out with suggestions for its improvement.
At times, students may expend considerable energy deliberating the logistics of a devised scene, only for it to result in either over-rehearsal, under-rehearsal, or a lack of creativity by the performance date. The initial starting point can also pose a challenge. As drama educators, we’re well-aware that a plethora of tools exist to aid students in devising work. These include, but are not limited to, improvisation, hot seating, still images, role of the wall, and movement exercises inspired by the likes of Frantic Assembly. These methods offer excellent avenues for students to initiate a hands-on exploration of their themes, topics, and objectives, thereby facilitating a collaborative journey towards bringing their work to life on stage.
The crux of the matter is this: students need to fundamentally distinguish between the exploration phase, the stage of material selection, and the rehearsal period. The exploration phase is where they solely indulge in playful discovery, unearthing the “treasures” of material that surface. On the other hand, the rehearsal phase is when this unearthed “treasure” is structured and polished for an audience. By “treasures”, I’m referring to the surprising and new ideas that emerge from spontaneous exploration.
It’s common for students to misconstrue the exploration phase as a time when a flawless performance must be delivered immediately. They may, borrowing a phrase from Frantic Assembly, “end-game” their initial exploration. If you’re not familiar with “end-gaming,” it’s the process of trying to determine an outcome before you’ve started exploring. This may stem from a deep-seated fear of failure.
Often, students spend a considerable portion of their designated time engaging in discussions or attempting to draft scripts. Although these techniques can be valuable later on, they should not stifle the possibility for fresh concepts to arise from initial explorations. I am going to propose a sequence aimed at easing students into the world of collective creation. This approach could potentially offer a framework to simplify and enhance the devising process. I’m inspired by the work of Frantic Assembly and their “building blocks”. Mike Leigh’s devising cycle also impacts my approach and is a model I frequently share with GCSE and A-Level students. This proposed sequence is intended for students who are new to group devising and could profit from a structured guide.
Let me explain each in more detail:
1. Set the Rules
At this stage, you will want to have a few parameters set in place to allow the exploration stage to be more productive. Students should decide who they are, where they are, why they are there. This may be given by the teacher or students can decide.
2. Explore
The students or teacher set a time limit for the improvisation (for example 2 minutes). Students begin to improvise. They should not worry about whether it is good or interesting. They should just explore at this stage. It is not for an audience. Alternatively, students can replace improvisation with another explorative strategy such as hot seating, tableaux, role of the wall, thought tracking or a practitioner-inspired strategy such as a Frantic Assembly building block.
3. Select/ Reject
After one round of “explore”. Students should then decide on what they liked and would like to keep for further exploration and what they would like to discard. They should be encouraged that there will be a lot of discarded material and that is fine. The job is to look for the “treasure”. That is the moments that were exciting and potentially interesting to their audience. They should repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as they like and can also revisit these when needed.
4. Structure
After gathering the “treasure” in steps 2 and 3, students should discuss how they would like to structure their piece. They may wish to create a storyboard or a script. More advanced students should consider narrative structures, for example, episodic or Freytag.
5. Rehearse
This is the stage where students should have the audience in mind and synthesise their ideas to use drama skills, mediums and elements to create meaning for an audience to enjoy.
So there you have it. The first version of my drama devising cycle version 1.0. Please do get in touch and let me know how you find it or if you have suggestions for version 2.0.
