Now that the script is completed, students can begin working more seriously on the movements, gestures, and other aspects of acting. In order to enter the acting portion of the unit, class and individual exercises will be presented, with exploration of group dynamics and warming up exercises. Getting the students to move about, to relate to each other, and to become comfortable with the idea of speaking in public and doing things that may seem silly within the play, will be the goal of the exercises and games.
This is also the time to recognize and learn ways to deal with various types of behavior that the students may exhibit. Students who are inhibited and shy and who, so far, have been cooperating due to group assignments, may not want to stand up in front of the group and recite or act. Also, students who are particularly knowledgeable in grammar and reading but whose oral skills may be lacking will, at this point, probably feel incompetent. In her book,
Creative Dramatics for Children
, Frances Cardwell Durland makes the following suggestions:
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1. Never mention the child’s name: always call him by the character’s name.
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2. Never say:”Don’t do this, do that”. Instead, ask the class “Let’s do it this way...”
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3. Keep the illusion of the play, suggest how
people in the play
feel, not the way the real students do.
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4. If things get stuck, go back to discussing the story with the group, and seek solutions from them.
Breaking up the Group
: This activity can be used to break up groups. Procedure: For
Ducks and Cows
have the students make a line or a circle, ask them to close their eyes. You will then go up to each of them and whisper “cow” or “duck” (you may use any other animals of your choosing), trying to get as many ducks as cows. When you are finished with all, you give a signal and all those designated “cow” will moo, those designated “duck” will quack. Keeping their eyes closed at all times, they will seek out their own species. This is not a quiet game, and space is needed to gather in opposite ends of the room. Once all the cows are together, and all the ducks have gathered, students will open their eyes. You now have two groups evenly divided, without asking for volunteers and with a maximum of enjoyment for all.
Hammers and Nails
: Ask the students to think for a moment and decide if they would rather be a hammer or a nail. Direct hammers to one end of the room, nails to the other. A short discussion as to the rationale for the choices they have made would follow. These points should be kept in mind: who is more important, the hammer or the nail? what is the function of the hammer? of the nail? (the hammer hits the nail and puts it in its place, but the nail is the one that holds the wood together, etc.). Following this logic, you may now bring in the characters of the play, are some more important than others? why? how do they all contribute? This is particularly helpful if there is a marked reluctance to play one of the roles in the play.
Cooperation
: This activity will be to stress our dependence in each other. Making two circles, one within each other, students will reach out and hold hands with two different people (the inside people with the outside people). When everyone is linked to two different people, the circle will try to untangle and form a straight line without letting the hands go. This activity needs lots of room, and some times music will make it more placid and less hectic. The end result will be a line, unbroken, and everyone would have cooperated in the untangling process.
Musical Machine
: Each student imitates a sound of an instrument and incorporates it to the first student, adding on to it. If the class is very large, it would be divided into groups of ten at the most. Example: Student 1 stands with swinging arms, imitating the sound of a violin; student 2 stands behind him and claps his hands over student 1 making the sound of cymbals; student 3 steps in front of student 1 and jumps up and down, making the sound of a drum, and so forth. Every person should concentrate on his own movement/sound while at the same time blend with the additions.
Reading the script
: Who will be the lead? Who wants to be the granddaughter? We all have students that are practically jumping out of their chairs to volunteer. But we want as many students to take part in the production as possible. This can be accomplished by assigning the characters to a “group”, who is responsible for the delivering of lines in unison.
Mime
: In this exercise students are assigned a role and, instead of reading or reciting the lines, they are required to express the feelings of the character in mime. Age, emotions, reactions can all be conveyed by the students without the barriers of language. Movements now come into play, with the older characters acting accordingly as it suits them (using a cane, limping, etc.).
At the end of component IV of my unit, students would have:
1. Experienced group dynamics (stressing cooperation).
2. Broken up into groups by random selection (making new friends).
3. Read the script as part of a group (oral skills, group decisions).
4. Mimed parts of the script (non-verbal communication).
We are now ready to rehearse the play, continuing to use the exercises just mentioned any time we want to warm up the group, or as a session wrap-up. You may look up different games and variations of the examples I have just given, or students themselves may improve on them. They will most probably have a favorite game and ask you to let them do it over and over again. It will be good to open all rehearsals sessions with a short exercise that will meet the requirements and goals without distracting the students too much from the task at hand, which is to produce a play.