Drama Menu at a Distance: 80 Socially Distanced or Online Theatre Games E-Book

Glyn Trefor-Jones

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 174

Beschreibung

'For however long we must keep our distance, we will continue to create, to reinvent, to strive and to feed our creativity. At a time where performers are needed more than ever, training the next generation of performers must go on!' Glyn Trefor-Jones, from his Introduction Drama Menu is the revolutionary, hugely popular concept that has transformed the planning and delivery of drama classes for teachers and workshop leaders around the world. Choose an Appetiser or two, a Starter, a Main Course and a Dessert – and voilà! – you'll have a delicious, dramatic banquet for your students. This new collection, Drama Menu at a Distance – created specifically to help anyone teaching drama during the COVID-19 pandemic – brings you 80 games and exercises, all of which are safe and secure to play in this new era of socially distanced teaching and online learning. It offers dynamic, brand-new exercises to energise, excite and inspire your group, alongside some firm favourites, redesigned to be played within the necessary constraints. Also included is an introduction by the author, with advice and suggestions to support you in delivering your session. Drama Menu at a Distance is the essential recipe book you need to eliminate the challenges of planning lessons and workshops in the 'new normal', and leave you with more time for playing. Stay safe – and bon appétit! Praise for Drama Menu: 'An essential resource for anyone teaching drama to children of all ages… easily accessible, flexible and creative... a must-have for all teachers wanting to give their students the very best!'Word Matters 'Well-organised and easy to use… a useful and relevant tool for anyone involved with facilitating drama sessions' Drama Magazine 'Unbelievably useful… every reader will find something new and of absolute hands-on usefulness… Drama Menu will become your companion' ReviewsGate.com 'Easy to navigate… definitely something for everyone… a really useful collection' Teaching Drama

Leseprobe

Glyn Trefor-Jones

NICK HERN BOOKS Londonwww.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Appetisers

Starters

Main Courses

Desserts

Closing Thoughts

Index of Games

About the Author

Copyright Information

Introduction

Welcome to this special edition of Drama Menu – and, this time, it’s all about working at a safe distance.

Since the COVID‐19 pandemic began spreading across the world in 2020, we have faced challenges like never before. For those of us who teach and lead drama classes and workshops, it must be our priority to do so in a safe, secure, healthy way – whilst also observing social distancing, in order to protect our students and halt the spread of the disease. But, as the old adage goes… the show must go on! At a time when performers are needed more than ever, training the next generation of performers must also go on!

This book contains eighty games and exercises that offer fun, creative, learning experiences without the need to get up close and personal. Several exercises have been adapted from Drama Menu due to their appropriateness for socially distanced play, whilst the rest are new exercises that have been devised with distance in mind. Even at a distance, drama training can still be vibrant, engaging, energising and extremely rewarding – and these exercises set out to increase every player’s performance abilities as well as respecting the rules of social distancing.

So… is what follows simply eighty different ways of performing a monologue? Fortunately not! In fact, a great many of these exercises require lots of creative cooperation, collaboration and connection so, with some creative thinking, even without entering into the personal space of others, a collective learning experience can be achieved.

For however long we must keep our distance, we will continue to create, to reinvent, to strive and to feed our creativity. Performers are resilient and resourceful and we won’t let a little thing like distance come between us and the drama! I invite you to embrace the new normal (for now) and I very much hope that you enjoy the book, and find it useful with your students, participants and players, in whatever setting you work.

The Menu

For those of you familiar with the Drama Menu concept, you’ll find that the format of this book remains the same. The eighty exercises are categorised into menu‐ inspired ‘courses’ that increase in difficulty (and dramatic potential) as you progress through the book. Even at a distance, you will find the same progressive approach to theatre training, with exercises categorised into ever‐more engaging courses. Just like a menu in a restaurant, you should choose one exercise from each course (or two if you’re feeling hungry) until you have a satisfying feast ready to be consumed!

The courses are laid out as follows:

Appetisers

These fast‐paced warm‐up exercises are devised to engage and enthuse, and are subdivided into ‘Circle’ and ‘Non‐Circle’ Appetisers. Circle games can be a very effective tool for maintaining distance, but it’s important to ensure that you have a large enough space in order to form an appropriately socially distanced circle.

Starters

With Appetisers consumed, the players will be energised, engaged and after something more challenging to satisfy their dramatic appetite. The Starters are the intermediary courses providing just that challenge – and then some! Players should be creatively stretched in this course and prepared for the final challenges to come…

Main Courses

The pinnacle of any meal, the Main Course provides the biggest test and also packs the largest creative punch. This is the time for practitioners to step back and allow the players to step up and do what they do best: devise, create and perform! All Main Courses in this book conclude with a performance piece.

Desserts

In this book, the Dessert course is devoted to games that work best in an online setting. So, if you haven’t yet returned to leading drama sessions with participants physically present, then these games will ‘zoom’ you through this difficult period until we can all meet again, in person, in the playing area! You will also find most of the Desserts can be played in person as well – though make sure players keep socially distanced at all times, of course.

Throughout the book there are also a great many exercises which are particularly useful as they can be employed in a physical setting and, with a bit of adaptation and ingenuity, in a virtual/digital workshop as well. These are indicated with the following symbol:

There is also a comprehensive Resource Pack available to download as an A4 PDF, which contains all the resources required to get the very best out of each exercise. If there is a script/worksheet/printout needed it is indicated at the top of the page, just above the game number, with the following: . Visit www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/drama‐menu‐at‐a‐distance and download the Resource Pack. Find the desired resource and print out the required number of copies (ensuring that you have one copy per student to avoid sharing of resources), and make it even easier to unlock the true potential of the book and quickly deliver engaging and inspiring drama sessions.

All in all, Drama Menu at a Distance serves up a theatre training in four courses which is not diluted by the lack of physical connection. The exercises in this book have been specially selected to nourish the creativity of all participants; even without getting up close and personal, players will find that they are still able to give of themselves, to share and connect with their fellow performers, and to enjoy a creatively fulfilling and progressive experience.

Staying Safe

The safety of the players in your group must be of paramount importance. Drama at a distance can provide as creative and rewarding a learning experience as an unrestricted session, but you must always keep one eye on the safety aspect of the work to ensure that it is fun‐filled and engaging whilst also adhering to social distancing. Here are some suggestions on how to achieve this:

Choose an appropriately sized space

Use as large a space as you have available. The more room that you have to work in, the easier it will be for players to keep a social distance.

Pace your session appropriately

It is important to work at a pace that allows players to adhere to social‐distancing rules. Too much running around excitedly will quickly lead to a breakdown of distancing discipline!

Utilise all available spaces

Where possible, send players away to rehearse in other spaces (or even outside) to ensure that they are able to work without encroaching into the space of others. You should continually monitor the learning and always insist that work is done at a safe distance.

Restrict the use of props

The sharing of props should be avoided. Where an exercise requires the use of a phone, ask that players use their own, ensuring that it is turned off.

Position the audience appropriately

When showing and presenting performance pieces, place the audience in the round wherever possible. This will help to maintain maximum distance between players and audience members.

Use furniture to reinforce distancing

Using well‐placed furniture in the playing area is a great way of maintaining a safe distance. If you ask for three players to enter the playing area, they are extremely likely to gather close together – but, if you place three appropriately spaced chairs in the playing area and ask them to sit, then they will, without having being asked to do so, distance themselves suitably from their fellow players.

Be considerate

Spatial awareness is an important attribute for any performer – and now is very much the time for them to display it! Encourage all players to make full use of their spatial‐awareness skills to remain distanced from both their fellow performers and the audience, in order to keep everyone safe. At the time of writing, face coverings are not required to be worn within classrooms in UK schools, provided that social distancing is followed. If this guidance changes (or teachers feel more comfortable with the use of face coverings), then most exercises in this book will work equally well, but players should be encouraged to use maximum diction in order to make themselves clearly heard.

Be clean

Good hygiene is (even more) essential at all times. Participants should be required to sanitise their hands before and after every session, and before and after any contact with objects or props. All chairs/props/equipment should also be thoroughly sanitised before use and, similarly, cleaned at the end of each session. If paper scripts, slips, resources or worksheets are used, you should ensure that there is a copy for each player to avoid the need for sharing, and they should be put in the recycling bin after the session (or taken home by the player). Alternatively, consider using laminated worksheets and scripts, but these should be sanitised and stored safely for reuse.

Be respectful

This is the most important aspect of all. Performers should always be respectful of one another and understand that keeping a safe distance is for the good of everyone, both those inside and outside of the room.

Staying Safe Online

The welfare of your group must also be paramount if you are working online in a digital space. The following guidance explains how to keep players safe in the virtual classroom, and is specifically written for those using Zoom as your platform of choice (other platforms may feature slightly different features). You should consider all these guidelines whichever platform you’re using, and make sure you know how the technology works before you begin doing so with young people.

Get parental permission

If you are working with young people or vulnerable adults online, you should always ask a parent/guardian to email their written permission before accepting them into the session. If you intend to record the session, you should seek written permission for this too.

Lock the classroom

If your class has started and all your pupils have arrived, be sure to lock your virtual classroom to ensure that no one can crash the theatrical party.

Use virtual waiting rooms

This feature allows you to hold potential participants in a separate ‘waiting room’, so you can check who they are before allowing them entry. There’s also a setting to allow known students to skip the waiting room, so you don’t have to manually allow thirty participants in every time.

Disable private messaging

By disabling private messaging between players, you can prevent them from talking to one another without your knowledge and keep their focus on the session.

Enable two-factor authentication

Generate a random meeting ID when scheduling your event and always require a password to join the meeting.

Mute participants

As the session host, you can block unwanted, distracting or inappropriate noise from participants by muting them (if only it were that easy in an ‘actual’ classroom!). It’s often a good idea to mute everyone when they join the session (by enabling ‘mute upon entry’ in your settings) and encourage players to use the ‘raise hand’ option if they want to speak.

Disable file transfer

In‐meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the chat. Turn this off to keep the chat from getting bombarded with unsolicited content.

Control screen-sharing

To maintain control over what participants are seeing and to prevent anyone else from displaying unsolicited content, ensure that screen‐sharing is switched to ‘Only Host’.

Set a dress code

Before the session, ask that all players are appropriately dressed when logging in… They may think that it’s okay to rock up in their pyjamas, but you should make it known that it is very much not!

Find a suitable space

The bedroom is not a suitable learning space – and this should be established with no ifs, buts or maybes! Players should find a suitable space in their home that allows them the freedom to move and fully express themselves.

Establish expectations

Players should be made aware that, although the session is being hosted via a different medium, the expectations are exactly the same as if it were a physical class. Players are expected to listen, give their all, respect one another, and offer full support to their peers.

This fun‐filled first course provides a wide selection of warm‐up activities to enthuse and energise the group before moving on to more expansive work. The Appetisers are divided into Circle Appetisers and Non‐Circle Appetisers. Mix and match these Appetisers as required until the players are fully warmed up and ready to move on.

Circle Appetisers

Circle games provide the perfect platform for social distancing. By having players stand two metres apart in a large a circle, it is easy to achieve, maintain and monitor distancing without affecting the enjoyment or outcome of the exercise.

The size of the created circle should reflect the number of players within the group, so a particularly large group will require a correspondingly large space. If you find that your space is a little too snug to fit everyone into one circle, then divide the players into two groups and have them play one group at a time; this solution works perfectly well as Circle Appetisers are generally quick‐fire affairs, and players won’t be waiting around for too long before it’s their turn.

Mime Story Circle

An inclusive exercise that uses mime to create a cohesive and progressive narrative.

Ask the players to stand in a socially distanced circle, and explain that you’re all going to combine your creative resources to tell a story. But this will be no ordinary story… oh no! This will be a story told without words; the only medium used to convey the tale will be actions and sounds.

With this exercise, it’s best to keep the explanations to a minimum and just dive straight in (the players will soon get the idea) – so, without further ado, announce that you will start the story, at which point you should move to the centre of the circle and perform an action and sound combination… Let’s say, you make a strong digging action accompanied by a deep grunt before returning to your place in the circle. This is the starting point of the story and with the first element in place, it’s time to build the narrative.

Ask the player to your right to add the next element to the story by entering the circle, repeating your digging and grunting combination, and then performing their own action and sound combination… Now, here’s the important bit: the action and sound that they create must connect to yours and must progress the story, so they may dig and grunt before pointing at the created hole and gasping in amazement! Now, invite the next player in the circle to dig, grunt, point, gasp and then add their own combination. This continues until the story has come to a natural end or the narrative has lost its way.

Acceptance is key here. Insist that players accept the ideas of others and offer their own creative input. This cycle of offering and accepting will ensure that the mimed story maintains a clear direction.

Once the first storyline has played out, have a discussion about the skills required to make the mimed story work: awareness, acceptance, listening, clarity, focus… it’s amazing how many skills are highlighted in this simple exercise. Then, with these all‐important skills at the forefront of their minds, start a brand‐new Mime Story and continue the process of stopping and restarting until all players have had their opportunity to contribute.

This exercise works excellently at a distance because the players are able to work creatively with their fellow performers, sharing ideas to build a narrative.

Heads Up, Heads Down

The game promotes concentration, group awareness and is excellent for bringing focus to the start of the session.

Ask the players to stand in a socially distanced circle. If there is an even number of players, you get to play (yay!). But, if there is an odd number, you must step outside the circle (boo!).

The rules are simple: when you call out ‘Heads down!’, all players must look – guess where? That’s right – down to the floor! Whilst looking down, they should decide (in their heads) who they are going to look at when they hear the call of ‘Heads up!’ The aim is not to be looking at someone who is also looking back at them. Focus should be sent out to the group here, as players attempt to tune into the others around them before deciding who they believe will not return their gaze! Now, call out ‘Heads up!’, accompanied by a clap to increase the urgency.

If two players are looking at one another, once eye contact is made, they must crumple to the ground (in mock agony) and they are both out of the game! This continues until only one person is left standing, and they are declared the winner!

From my experience, some players will tend to rely on the ‘dark arts’ to ensure that they progress to the latter stages of the game, so here are some ‘misdemeanours’ to look out for and ward against:

On the call of ‘Heads up!’, players must look directly towards another player who is ‘in play’. Looking at the floor/ceiling/thin air is not in the spirit of the game.

Players must not look up, see a pair of eyes staring at them and quickly avert their gaze.

Looking at the same person consecutively or continuously is forbidden.

You will need eyes in the back of your head but, when played correctly, it’s an excellent game for encouraging focus, concentration and connection between players.

5-Second Rule

Focus, concentration and remaining cool under pressure are key skills in this quick‐fire circle game.

Ask the players to stand in a socially distanced circle and explain that each player will, in turn, be given a subject and they have five seconds to name three items/objects/people from that given subject in order to remain in the game…

You should stand in the centre of the circle and announce the first subject – let’s say ‘Winter Clothing’ – whilst pointing towards your first ‘victim’. As you point, you should hold up your non‐pointing hand (palm outwards) and use your retracting fingers to visually display the five‐second countdown. If the player names three items of winter clothing within the five seconds, they remain standing. If not, they sit down.

Now, move on to the next player and announce a new subject. Examples of possible subjects might be:

Things you’d find in a fridge.

Famous novels.

Pop songs.

School subjects.

Animals you’d find in a zoo.

Movies

Things starting with ‘B’.

Holiday destinations.

Ways to become a millionaire.

Continue playing until you have navigated the whole circle and are back at the start. It’s time now to ramp up the pressure, so navigate the circle again, only this time the standing players must name four things from their given subject. If there are still players standing after this, go for five, six, seven… until you’re left with only one player: the winner!

This is a particularly versatile game, as you can tailor the subjects to suit the age of your group. With younger players, go with a subject like Disney films, and with older participants maybe plays by Shakespeare… Not only is it fun, but it can also be very educational!

Someone Else’s Number

An inclusive concentration exercise that improves focus and concentration.

Ask the group to stand in a socially distanced circle and, starting with yourself, number the players in turn in a clockwise direction from one. Choose one member of the group to start off, and explain that the only rule is that they have to say someone else’s number. Once they have said someone else’s number (e.g. ‘Five’), Player 5 must say someone else’s number… This continues until there is a cannon of people saying someone else’s number in succession! Once everyone has got the hang of it, pause the game and explain that, if a player pauses or hesitates before saying someone else’s number, then they are out.

Restart the game and, once someone pauses or hesitates, declare them to be ‘out’ and ask them to sit down. That number is now out of commission and from now on, if someone pauses or hesitates, they are out… but if they say a number that is out of commission, they are also out. Continue this until you get down to the last two players, who can be joint winners.