Process Drama IDEAS

Man in Rain Process Drama- by Catherine Gear, Susie Coad, Danni Vrondou and Laura St. Clair
ECA 431: Assignment One- Process Drama 

According to Bowell and Heap (2001), process drama is a discovery based performance in which ‘presentation to the internal audience is essential’[1]. Process drama can help students to understand wider issues in their society. Through our process drama we will be focussing on the issues of loneliness, abandonment, confrontation and rejection.

Using a range of dramatic conventions we have created a process drama that can be adapted to a classroom format.

Teacher should provide the following items for students to use throughout the process drama:

·        Backpack

·        Any item clothing for example jacket, t-shirt etc.

·        Notebook

·        Letter

·        Keys

·        Torch

MAN IN RAIN DRAMA 

Step One-

Manifest Conflict - Hand out picture ask class to identify the characters cultural and socio-economic status.  What is their name, age, family status etc. The teacher should then ask the students to hold a vote on any ideas that the class wants to develop.

Step Two-

Hot Seat – Students are to ask 3 questions of the teacher who is sitting in the hot seat. The teacher is to answer the questions as the character that the students wish to develop further. The teacher should answer minimally, as the aim of the task is to get the students to develop their own ideas about the characters and the story behind the image.

Step Three-

Gossip Circle - This activity is designed to help the story/past history of the character to come to light.  Students gather in groups of 5 or 6 to discuss rumours about the man in the picture.  This activity allows for any silliness to come out and also identifies any tension, conflicts or contradictions present in the narrative.  At the end of the small group session, students should move together as a class to discuss their findings and to choose a narrative for their drama.

Step Four-

Flashback / Latent Conflict - In groups of 4 or 5 students should improvise a flashback sequence that will depict one week prior to when the picture was taken.  Each group should perform to the rest of the class who will act as an audience.  There are many ways to structure an activity of this sort.  One suggestion is to have one student playing the central character.  It is advised that all students take a turn playing the central character throughout the process drama.

Step Five-

Private Property - Using the items the teacher brought into the class, students are to select one item per group that they will adapt into their flashbacks. The object becomes a personal possession of one of the characters in their performance and it is up to the students to develop how the characters may have used the object. It can be used symbolically or literally.  Students are encouraged to alter their scene to accommodate for the introduction of the object.

Step Six-

Freeze Frame / Thought tracking – From the previous exercise, students are asked to freeze a particular part of the flashback sequence.  The teacher taps each student in the scene on the shoulder and asks them to express any emotion, tension or thoughts they may have about the scene.  The students then answer as their character in order to add spontaneity and further develop the character and plot through improvisation.

Step Seven-

Headlines - Students choose any part of the narrative they like and create newspaper headlines based on a silent drama.  They perform it to the class bearing in mind the headline the group has come up with.  The rest of the class observes the performance and suggests any headlines that came to them whilst watching the performance.  The group then performs the silent drama again, this time with sound and dialogue depicting the original headline (eg- a news broadcast).   This activity provides the students with different points of view of the same scene and involves whole class participation.

Step Eight-

Gestus - Gestus involves loaded actions that highlight any themes that have been previously explored.  Each group will be given a certain time period in which their drama will be set, for example one week, one month or one year after the picture has been taken, in which they are to create a short sequence involving gestus, that depicts possible future outcomes of the progress drama.

Step Nine-

Marking the Moment - Students are asked to pick a particular moment that evoked a strong emotional response during the process drama.  As the character involved in that particular moment they develop their own short performance that reflects their own personal experiences when first encountering the scene.

Step Ten-

Iceberg - In this activity the students and teacher discuss what is text and what is subtext in the drama they have created.  The teacher will draw an iceberg on the whiteboard and a line through the centre.  Above the line represents text and below represents subtext.  The students participate in class discussion whilst the teacher notes any relevant ideas on the iceberg diagram.

Step Eleven-

Moment of Truth - Based on the findings from the iceberg exercise as well as past experiences from other activities, students develop an ending for the process drama.  They do this by reflecting on discussions and themes from the drama that they then put into sharp focus in the final scene.  This allows students to create meaning from their work.

Step Twelve-

Reflection – Students discuss feelings about the drama and emotions it brought up.  They should discuss whether they enjoyed the performance and what they gained from the performance both personally and emotionally.  After the performance the teacher should ask if students had any new ideas, or saw any new themes emerge from the picture.  Whilst this discussion is taking place, the original picture of the  man is being displayed on the whiteboard.

This picture is the pretext that we have chosen for our process drama.  We chose this image because we as a group thought it had meaning and could evoke strong emotions.  It is also ambiguous, allowing for a large amount of personal interpretation and development to take place.  You can view the picture by copying and pasting the below link into a new internet explorer window.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u172/layla_095/ManInRain.jpg 

References 

• Neelands, J. 1998, The A-Z of Drama Conventions and Techniques, as cited in ‘Beginning Drama 11-14’, David Fulton Publishers, London, pp 93-98.

• Carnegie, J. Currie, P. Stynes, J. ND, ‘A Hero’s Journey: Find your Spirit, Live your Dreams’, TGS Press, Richmond, Victoria.

• O’ Toole, J. Morrison, M. Plunkett, A. 1998, ‘Drama and Conflict Management: Process Drama without Tears’,Deakin
  University, 2007.

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[1] Bowell & Heap, 2001, ‘Distilling the Principles of planning for Process Drama’, as cited in ‘Planning Process Drama’, David Fulton Publishers,
London, pg7.