Introduction to Drama

Unfortunately I missed a few of my initial lessons due to illness however, my first lesson with rob and the class went very well and was really fun. We started working on improvisation skills and after being split into groups we were shown pictures and asked to create a piece of drama based on our interpretations of those images. My group chose a picture called Ophelia by John Everett Millais.



We chose to interpret this as a woman that had been killed and our improvisation was centred on the circumstances that could have lead to a woman being killed and left in a river. Our group was made up of four girls and me and another girl started by discussing a new boy I had begun dating and was excited about. The second part of the drama revealed that this was one of the other girls boyfriends and her and her friends supported her in a confrontation and attack on my character who they then kill and drag into the woods.


This improvisation allowed us to practice and develop our the following acting skills.

-instinctive response
-confidence
-spontaneity
- creativity
- working together and trusting your peers and other actors

In our feedback from Rob he said that we did really well in not letting audience response, positive or negative, throw us off or loose character during the performance. He also said that we needed to improve on our ability to listen to each other as actors when creating an argument scene so that we can still shout and depict confrontation whilst all still being heard and key lines not being drowned out, these points were all very helpful and I felt like I learned a lot about improvisation. I also found that watching everybody else's performances gave us a better idea of what our performance looked like from the audiences perspective.

                            ……………………………………………………


For this lesson we had an artist come in with a table of props/art she had made and a camera. Some of these props where things like a suitcase full of paper,a jack in the box and other conceptual objects. She wanted us to incorporate her art into our drama, being as creative and imaginative as we could.

when it was my turn, my character used a prop as a mirror in a very regal and vein way as i admired my own reflection, I put my hand on my hip and showed confidence and pride as my character walked around the space. The other actors behind me then crept up on me in a "whats the time mr wolf" fashion, as they then covered me with a large sheet. somebody actually ended up tripping over and tackling me to the ground which ended up being quite funny.

The acting skills we got to develop doing this were:

  • improvisation
  • creativity
  • use of space
  • flexibility 
Here is the video of all the performances that were created using the props we were given. My groups performance is 5:45 into the video. 
                      


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