DRAMA WORKSHOP: New School Year with lots of surprises

The New School Year has started for Drama Workshop and its 20 new actors.

They began the class saying hello to our bloggers.

Then, they discovered the difference of sitting down on the green carpet, as spectators, and on
the red carpet, as puppeteers.
There they learnt the only two rules during the class: 

"Respect yourself and respect the teacher"

After that, they watched some original trailers -Lion King, Mamma Mia- to encourage them to create something imaginative and creative during the current school year.


Later, they learnt their first song which will be part of the play to be performed before Christmas.

To finish, they played the puppets: Mr. Complaints and Miss Sympathy, close-up friends from now  onwards.

And that's all for now. Bye, friends!!!

Funny School Times -2, The Musical

After a long long term preparing songs and sketches Drama Workshop is getting to their finish line.

 In just 24 hours the stage will be full with emotions and illusions, and the seats in the stalls complete.
But to get to the date, the students , and the teacher, have had to overcome time and destiny.
What have time and destiny been so far?

Funny School Times 2 (2013) from J. Carlos Martínez

4th Week: Clever Jackal

Today they have started class reviewing "Elements of a Play":
Theme - Communication -Conflict -Mood - Character - Plot - Stagecraft.
In the picture we can observe the different "Directors" of the different teams leading their actors during the rehearsal:

In order to follow the Trilingualism General Project for the English subjects, this term we have started working with tales. The difference is that  in Drama Workshop we choose tales to be performed or we write the necessary dialogues for the number of actors of the class.

Our first tale will be Clever Jackal. It's an interesing and witty story situated in Africa. Different animals give different solutions  not to be eaten by Tiger.
                          

  In the pictures we see them reading aloud and setting the story on the class stage.

Games and Techniques

We have started rehearsing sketches; but we don't forget improvisations and other techniques.
In the first pictures several directors direct their group to present the elements of a Drama.

 If they feel proud of their performance, they shake hands. If not... who knows what will happen?

 Besides, they have a time to improvise. On this occassion there are two topics.
"You are eating a sandwich and a friend comes to be invited. You don't want to."

"You are reading a book under a tree. The rest of students go there with a different action."

3rd week: The Tkt Inspector

Our warm-ups for this week are based on improvisations.

First, they play "hot seating". They sit down in front of their mates and talk for a non-stop minute.

Then, they go on working with Characters & Emotions.

       Expressing five emotions

      1.     You are…  kind

      2.     You are… cruel

      3.     You are… aggressive

      4.     You are… sensitive

      5.     You are inquisitive

Ways of working:

a       -  Write a sentence of what that person might do and say

         -  Use an action using the sentence.

c       -  Use the action and the sentence: at home, at a table in a café, on a park bench or wherever you want.

More words that can be used:

proud	greedy	shy	nervous	stupid
friendly	careless	clumsy	mad	old
peculiar	Bad.tempered	worried	angry	happy
conceited	ignorant	sexy	overworked	depressed
enthusiastic	intelligent	sad

In the second part of the class, we read the first sketch for the next play: The Ticket Inspector.

I've got a good story! Would you like to listen to it?

During the current term, in the Trilingual English classes we are working with tales, biographies and comics. But, to open mouth, it is a good idea to start with some word games.
After describing some images of classical tales frozen on the stage...

...we played the funny game "Sausage" - they forget they are shy and afraid of speaking- and then, in a three/four-people team, they were given the beginning of a sentence and started a story.

 They wrote the next line and passed the paper to another team to go on with the story.

These were the beginnings:

- I've got a good story. Would ypu like to listen to it?
- Oh, it's so boring. What can we do?

Next day we'll see if they are imaginative enough as to present a good story.

2nd Term, 2nd week

"The teacher has told us that we have to prepair a computer project for this term: The diary!!!

But how can we make a virtual diary?
Then, he has shown us some examples from last year; from the simplest one to the best one full with especial effects and music.

We wanted to know more about it as it is a bit difficult.

       We have also played some games. On this occassion we have played with adjetives. He has given us 5 adjetives dealing with emotions in order to create characters: kind - cruel - aggressive - sensitive -and inquisitive. It's been very funny, especially at the beginning because nobody knew how to start. But litttle by little... we have lost our fears."

New Term: Self-Assessment

We finished last year's last term performing Funny School Times - 1;

but we did't have time to watch the recorded video and to make a review. That's why in the first class of the first week of the New Year, Drama students have watched their performance and  self-assessed.

Self-assessment: Cooperative Group Work

Name: ______________________________________________Date: ______________

Activity: 1^ST Evaluation Play

Circle the word that best describes your level of participation and cooperation.

1.      I respect the class at the rehearsals

not at all          rarely           sometimes        often

2.      I am a disciplined person

not at all          rarely           sometimes        often

3.      I make an effort at the rehearsals in class

not at all          rarely           sometimes        often

4.      I cooperate with the teacher to do well in the class

not at all          rarely           sometimes        often

5.      I respect the teacher obeying his rules

not at all          rarely           sometimes        often

6.      I offer my opinion on the proper time

not at all        rarely         sometimes        often

7.      I listen to the other group members and help them

not at all            rarely        sometimes         often

8.      I encourage others to participate.

not at all         rarely        sometimes         often

9.      What I liked best about working with this group:

10.  What gave me the most difficulty when working with this group:

But time at Drama classes is not always so serious. 

There is always time for games. On this occassion, we celebrated the New Year, or their first performance, with a well-known game: 

The Orchestra

They also improvised some images. A student came out at the class front, imagined an object (a tree, for instance) and a group of five or six completed different actions around the tree.