Help!, I'm a new drama club advisor!?

I love drama and theatre. I am actually going to school for a degree in teaching drama. I have had 4 yrs experience in school. I have won an award for best actor in a UIL competition. I would be willing to give some help.

Sigh. Just thrusting a play into the hands of your students isn't going to do anything. As a playwright and director, and having been in many theatre groups, I can tell you that when you have people starting from scratch, what you need to do is teach them what drama is about.

1) Emphasize the usefulness of drama within their everyday lives (this applies to other performing arts also). Things such as voice projection and posture learning can help them appear assertive when they feel confronted or in a difficult situation. In learning the different ways to present the same sentence, they will also see how presentation of words is often much more important than the words themselves.

2) Do some fun 'theatresport' games. Not only will this help them see one of the most fun sides of drama but it will help you understand many simple dramatic concepts such as mime, characterisation and a lack of blocking (blocking is where another actor will reject somebody else's ideas, thus making the audience painfully aware that they're watching students and not a 'real' scene). For some outlines of theatresports games, try http://www.theatrelinks.com/theatresports.htm - it contains many links to such game outlines.

3) Allow your students to pick an excerpt however short or long from any play of their choice from the library which they feel relates to them - then get them to act it out. Make it clear that if the character is a different gender, then they should try to appear of that gender also. If that character is particularly older or younger than them, again they should try to act it. Make sure they don't just read the excerpt but truly engage with it and act it in such a way that you feel it is worth discussing. In allowing them choice, they feel an active engagement with drama. If they do simply read it, don't be scared to give them direction -it's amazing how easy it is to see what is wrong with a performance once you understand the intention behind the words. This step could also be applied to other performing arts such as dance or song.

4) If you're going to put on a play, ensure that it's not just a play kids are going to moan about. It is much better to put on a 'low-brow' play that the kids are interested in, as opposed to a 'high-brow' play which will receive no support or enthusiasm. The aim of drama clubs is to inspire a love of drama - only then will critiques and more complex pieces be of interest to the students.

5) As you already have a background in English, you shouldn't find any direction work difficult. Just as you analyse the meaning behind the words in a novel, so too do you analyse the words of a play - the difference being that in a play you can see directly how to implement the words in such a way so as to enforce what you believe the author's aim is. If you feel you understand the background, themes, and character journeys behind a play - then you'll find direction will naturally follow. Something as simple as what an actor does with their hands can change depending on the play's details, and you'll instinctively know when something's "not quite right".

That being said, good luck and I hope your students are all enthusiastic and bright :)

Go to the library and check out plays. Xerox several monologues and scenes between two people. Make sure everyone has a monoluge and two people have the duet scenes on top of a monologue. Have them memories these and work together in pairs. Also, get a reader's theatre play or two to have them read outloud each day. Let them block the duets and everyone in class give advice after each scene. It's fun.

Find a good play and give your students lines to remember.

Give them all a sheet of paper with lines in the play.

Then let each one of em get up in front of the class and try to repeat the line by heart, but can carry the paper .

Ask the to feel the character within like if they were the character themselves, and help them go change their voices with emotions.Use their eyes and hands more.

Many of the best actors today are "method" actors.

The method is Stanisslavski's.

Start with "An Actor Prepares," and "Creating a Character."

then:

http://www.amazon.com/Making-Leap-Empowerment-Prac...

Enjoy!