Ultimate Drama Activities for the Classroom

by Joanne Watkinson

Overview

Packed full of games, activities and exercises, this book is designed to be a drama teacher's best friend. Written by a drama teacher with over twenty years' experience which includes heading up a performing arts faculty in a secondary school, GCSE and A-Level examining and presiding as the principal of a successful theatre school, as well as being a published playwright and having her work featured in the 2019 LAMDA Acting Anthology.

As well as featuring drama games to use in the classroom, this book contains thorough instructions, valuable advice and useful activities to use in the teaching of improvisation and devising for small and large groups and working with script. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781914228131
Publisher:	Salamander Street Ltd.
Publication date:	07/27/2021
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 18 Years

About the Author

Joanne Watkinson is a forty-six-year-old writer from Yorkshire. She started writing when she was a teenager, and continued to do so through to adulthood, although it took nearly two decades before she allowed anyone to read anything she’d written. In the early nineties Joanne studied Performing Arts in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire gaining a BA Hons, and went on to study for a PGCE in Drama and English at Bretton Hall college. In 1996 she took up a Drama and English teaching post at a school in South Yorkshire where she stayed for nineteen years heading up a successful performing arts department. Alongside her teaching commitments she examined for GCSE and A-Level practical exams travelling around the country. But after a devastating set back due to a serious illness, made the difficult decision to leave her teaching career to fulfil a dream of opening her own theatre school and becoming a writer.

Elite Theatre Arts opened in Doncaster nearly five years ago and continues to go from strength to strength. Last year Joanne set herself a new challenge and started up ETA Management, a casting agency for children and young adults, she continued writing along side setting up the businesses and after several successful years of self publishing her monologues were picked up by LAMDA for their recent Anthology. Working with children has always been an important part of Joanne’s career and to date she has directed over fifty plays and shows across Yorkshire including some of her own material, which she continues to enjoy writing. Joanne is so pleased to have joined forces with Salamander Street, and is looking forward to new goals and opportunities.

Table of Contents

Warm Up Games

Name Game 1

Name and Gesture 1

Introduction Game 1

Wink Murder 2

Who's Changing the Movement? 2

Blood Potato 3

Do This 3

Ladders 3

Questions 6

Keeper of the Keys 6

What Are You Doing? 7

Stage Directions 7

Prisoner and Guard 9

Knots 12

What Time Is It Mr/Mrs Wolf? 12

Stuck in the Mud 13

Themed Human Bingo 14

Truth and Lie 14

Mirrors 15

Finger Snap 15

The Rule Game 16

Emotions Exercise 17

Improvisation and Devising

Drama Skills to Consider Before Performing 18

What Is Improvisation? 18

Improvisation Exercises 19

Short Dialogue Extracts for Improvisation 22

Climax or Anti-Climax 27

Contrasting Scenes/Split Staging 32

Short Scene Starters 34

Alphabet Script 36

Physicality 38

Chance Element 39

What's in the Box? 42

Creating Your Own Dialogue for a Scene 43

Alphabet Duologue 45

Improvisation Scenarios Based on a Given Theme 46

Song Title 47

Mimes 48

Improvisations Using Chairs 50

Improvisation for Large Groups

Improvisation Game 52

Styles 52

The Party 53

The Apocalypse 53

Who Done It? 59

Memories 61

Stimuli for Devised Work 62

Newspaper Headlines 66

Using Script Extracts as Stimuli for Devised Work 66

Working with Script

Attention to Detail 81

Animating Characters 82

Ghosts 88

Up High 90

Fairy Tale Land News Bulletin 93

The Magic Bookcase 97

Comparing Scene Extracts 100

Trouble in the Enchanted Forest 109

Mission Complete 112

Who Needs Enemies 116

Working with an Ensemble Play 123

Stichomythic Dialogue 138

Exploring Character 148

Evaluating Performance Work 157