Introduction to
Drama in the
Classroom
The Guidebook
• Use of drama in classrooms teaching & learning
• Shows enormous potential of drama as a learning tool
• Improve students’ interest in using the English
Language
• Not about training actors and actresses
• Explore human conditions, stimulating students to
better understand themselves and the world
• Not prescriptive but ideas to share
• Teacher decides
• Photocopiable handouts or task sheets
• Friendly, useful, adaptable
• Joyful and fun learning to suit teaching
environment and students
• Your students “gulping and gasping” for
more!
Suggested Activities
• Part 1 : Warm-ups
• Part 2 : Pre-production
• Part 3 : Production
What is Drama?
• Performances where actors work together to
represent stories by impersonating the
actions and speech of imaginary characters
• Usually performed on stage for the audience
Why Drama?
• A social art where no one person can produce a play by himself.
• A collective effort and product of many relationships: writers,
director, actors, a group of people who design and build the stage,
props, costumes etc.
• Introducing drama to children gives opportunity to seek knowledge,
create a presentation, be someone or something, explore a
situation and to work and learn together with friends and strangers.
"Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I will remember.
Involve me and I will understand."
Chinese Proverb
Drama or Play?
Generally, the terms are interchangeable.
• A play: A literary work written for performance on the stage; a drama and
the performance of such a work.
• A drama: A prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious
story, that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the
characters and performing the dialogue and action.
• Source: Baldick, C. (2004) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary
Terms, OUP
Elements of Drama
Character
• Person who appears in the play
• Basic part of playwright's work
• Conventions of period and author's personal vision affect
treatment of character.
• Major and minor characters
• Explanation and development of major characters is
essential
• Useful distinction between;
-heroes (or heroines) and villains
-good and bad guys
-virtue and vice
Plot
Theme
• Plot is the body
• Theme is the soul
• Conflict between individuals, man and society,
man and some superior force or man and
himself.
• Events from conflict make up the plot
• Able to state it in general terms and in a single
sentence
Dialogue
• Provides the substance
• Each word uttered contributes to its overall
effect
• DECORUM must be established, i.e. what is said
is appropriate to the role and situation of a
character
• Exposition of the play:
- often falls on the dialogue
- establishes the relationships, tensions or
conflicts of later
Design
in
Drama Production
Set Design
• Students assigned as set designers
• The visual environment in which a play is
performed
• Suggests time and place and create proper
mood or atmosphere
• Can be devoid of any setting like some
contemporary or Japanese drama
Stage Facilities
• Determine the use and movement of scenery
• Classroom furniture can be used as props
• School hall may offer more sophisticated
equipment
• Backdrop may be a drawing on whiteboard
or elaborate painted scenery.
Lighting Design
• Illuminates the stage and the performers
• Creates mood and control focus of the
spectators
• From a direct source like the sun or a lamp
• May be indirect, employing reflected light or
general illumination
• Classroom drama must have enough
illumination for audience to see
Costume Design
• Whatever is worn on performer's body.
• Concerned with clothing and accessories, but often
responsible for wigs, masks, and makeup.
• Convey information about character
• Set the tone or mood
• Actual or re-created historical or contemporary dress
• May also be suggestive or abstract.
• Simple identity tags or pieces of costume (hats,
scarves, glasses, etc.) for class production
• Authentic costumes for serious production
Mask
• Prevent use of face for expression and
communication
• Performer becomes puppet-like; depends solely
on voice and gesture
• Expression unchanging throughout
• Shifts focus from actor to character
• Indicate symbolically significant aspects of
character
• Aid shy students because can hide person as
actor but reveal action.
Makeup
• Exaggerates and distorts facial features
• Emphasizes and reinforces facial features
• Alter signs of age, skin tone, or nose shape
• Simple classroom plays may not need
makeup
Technical Production
• Preproduction and Production stage
• Supervised by technical director in
conjunction with designers
• Set arranged for the scenery on the stage (eg.
backdrop and other paraphernalia)
• Props are properties or objects used
• Sets, props, and costumes made by crew.
Sound and Sound Effects
• Recorded during preproduction
• Most common sound effect; the wind, rain,
thunder, and animal noises
• Any sound cannot be created by performer
considered as sound effect
• For realistic effect (e.g., train or city sound)
• Create mood or rhythm
• Accompanied by music produced by live
musicians or recorded music
Props
• Objects handled by actors, placed or carried
on the set (not costumes or scenery)
• Maybe created from papier-mâché or plastic
for lightness
• Exaggerated in size, irregularly shaped
• Capable of being rolled, collapsed, or folded
• The person in charge : props master or
mistress
INTRODUCTION
TO
GULP AND GASP
The Writer
Name : John Townsend
Occupation: Past – teacher (25 years)
Present – full time writer
Works : Fiction, non-fiction and
plays for young people.
Other titles : Incredible Creature Series,
Raintree Series, True Crime
Series, and Painful Histories
Series.
Interest : Reading
Synopsis
Lord Septic is determined to find the long lost Gatsby Gold
own by Lady Gatsby who was brutally murdered. He buys a
railway line where he believes the Gatsby Gold is hidden. He
will do anything to get his hand on the gold and he will kill
those who get in his way. Meanwhile, Rose, a blind girl, turns
up at the station to sell flowers to support her ailing mother.
Acting on the instruction of Lord Septic, Crouch tries to get
her to leave the station. He throws her flowers onto the
railway track Percy, the dashing young orphan, comes to her
rescue only to be knocked unconscious by Lord Septic. Both
he and Crouch tie Rose to a railway track in an attempt to
get rid of her. She finds out about Percy’s true identity and
the secret of the Gatsby Gold.
The approaching train can mark the end of Rose and resolved
Lord Septic’s problem. Is the fate of these people falls in the
hand of Percy? Will Percy manage to save Rose and finds
the truth about his identity? Or will this be the end of him?
Plot
Rose is tied to the track with train
approaching. Percy saves Rose.
Conflict between Crouch
and Rose, between Lord Septic and Crouch are
Crouch and Percy and tied up. Percy finds out that he
between Lord Septic and is Lady Gatsby’s son. He
Rose lead to Percy’s searches for the Gatsby Gold.
conflict with Lord Septic
Lord Septic is a rich man who wants power Percy finds the Gatsby Gold. He
and is looking for the Gatsby Gold. Rose is proposes to Rose. Lord Septic and
blind and poor. Percy is a poor orphan. Crouch are caught by the police.
Setting
Setting
Characters
Lord Septic
Crouch
Rose
Percy
Themes
Values
