LESSON PLAN

Devising
by Jeni Whittaker

This Digital Theatre+ Lesson Plan aims to furnish a number of tools and
strategies for students producing devised work as part of their
assessment. Written by Jeni Whittaker of DramaWorks, this invaluable
guide encourages improvisation, creativity and the use of imagination in
order to create a performance which will be judged on its effectiveness as
a piece of theatre.

CONTENTS

• Introduction and Overview 2

• Session One: Group Collaboration 5
• Session Two: Rhythm and Movement 15
• Session Three: Releasing the Imagination 23
• Session Four: Two + One 38
• Session Five: Starting with Characters 46
• Session Six: Space and Environment 55
 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

THE SESSIONS

These six sessions have been designed to last for 60-75 minutes and are
suitable for for Key Stage 4 and above. They are an ideal starting point for
all examination syllabuses, every one of which requires devising as a key
component.

DT+ FAST ROUTE

For 40-45 minute sessions, follow the clock and take the DT+
Fast Route. This route will cut out some suggestions, but leave a
residue that encompasses the most important points.

EXAMINATION BREAKDOWN

All the examinations break down their allocation of marks between three
areas:

• Process
• Product
• Evaluation.

The PROCESS demands that each individual student should:

• Understand the collaborative nature of the work.

• Contribute to the process of development.
• Do research, e.g. on issues and themes, theatre styles and
target audience.
• Realise the dramatic potential in a range of sources and select,
use and develop them for performance.

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The PRODUCT expects the whole group, and each individual within
the group to:

• Use appropriate styles and an appropriate form to communicate

with their target audience.
• Achieve original work of performance standard.

The EVALUATION mark is given as both a part of the PROCESS and

a part of the PRODUCT. Every student is marked on their ability to:

• Evaluate throughout the devising process.

• Reflect critically on the finished product and its effectiveness
and communication with the audience.
• Contextualise their own work against current theatre work or
historical forms.

The following lesson plans bear each of these examination demands in

mind.

Each session also includes:

• Collaborative work and contribution to the developmental process.

• References to different theatre styles and contemporary practice.

• Research suggestions on various theatre practices, companies and

practitioners which include interviews, essays and other resources
available on Digital Theatre+.

• Evaluative skills, recognition of dramatic potential and selection of

material, plus evaluation of the effectiveness of material on an
audience.

Some examination boards set a stimulus as a starting point for the devising
process. Others leave all choices open. These sessions are about starting
the process. Whether you have a given stimulus or an open choice, you
still need to begin somewhere.

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STARTING POINTS

Different companies have different ideas as to how to begin. Some are

character-driven in their approach and others are more narrative-driven.

Director Mike Leigh encourages characters out of people. He works

separately with each actor over a period of months, drawing a character
out of them. Then, the characters improvise together for a further long
period and the story begins to emerge.

Other companies have an idea or even a whole narrative already in mind.

Their focus is on how to tell the story in a way that will engage and
surprise the audience. Usually this will be through a very physical
approach. Shared Experience are an example, who seek to translate
novels into physical terms. Others, like Frantic Assembly, tend to use a
play as a starting point, but then seek out ways of physicalizing the
emotional subtext underlying that script.

Then there are those who mix both of these. There may be the seeds of a
story – for instance a folktale or a myth – which is explored through
unusual, often archetypal, characters from the outset. The story is
the loose structure on which are hung a variety of surprising or
larger-than-life characters. British theatre company Kneehigh use this
approach, and so, often, does Peter Brook.

The above are just the most usual starting points. There are as many
approaches to devised theatre as there are theatre companies.

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SESSION ONE: GROUP COLLABORATION

Objectives: To encourage the idea of collaboration and to expand

it so that students are able to work generously outside their usual
friendship groups.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• Enough chairs for each student.
• Drum or tambourine (optional).

Whatever the project that the group ends up with, whatever its style, form
or eventual subject matter, devising requires the ability to collaborate with
others.

In an examination, students are marked on their individual contributions to

the finished piece, but the piece will also be judged and marked as an
effective piece of theatre. It is essential therefore to make sure that the
group can work with each other and can develop strategies to include its
most difficult members and to encourage their contribution to the piece.

All performance groups (e.g. Frantic Assembly, Kneehigh) that use devising
as a key part of their approach will start their day with exercises like the
following.

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 WARM-UP

This warm-up is adapted for the studio from a Kneehigh exercise (they do
their version outdoors). As well as being a useful warm-up, it also relies on
group collaboration and teamwork.

• Start walking in close formation. Only a few inches should

separate each one of you. Your formation will depend on the
numbers in your group, but an example would be if you have
nine in your group, then have three lines of three in a box
formation.

• Practise walking at the same pace as everyone else. There is

no leader for the exercise. When you have achieved this,
increase the pace, once again without anyone obviously
instigating the change. You are aiming for a unity within the
group that includes all members, without any one person being
the leader.

• Play with the walking pace by increasing or decreasing the

speed, keeping to the formation and the distances apart from
your neighbours. If the formation breaks or the distances alter,
go back to a slow pace and build up gradually.

• When you are able as a group to do this, begin to run together.

It's not a sprint but just a jog, so that everyone is able to do it.

• When you are able to keep together without breaking

formation, or increasing distance between the other lines or
your neighbours, appoint a leader for the day.

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The leader will call out instructions, as follows, but in any order:

• Forwards
• Backwards
• Touch
• Change
• Close eyes.

• On the command TOUCH – everyone touches another person

close to them, putting a hand on a shoulder or on the back
between the shoulder blades, for example. The rhythm and the
pace of the run must not alter. Keep going until all members of
the group are physically as well as mentally linked.

• On the command CHANGE – everyone, without disrupting the

rhythm of the jog, changes places with another WITHOUT
BREAKING THE FORMATION. It could be just a swap with
another in your line, or with someone behind or in front. If chaos
happens, keep coming back to this instruction. Once again, it's
about group sensitivity.

• On the command CLOSE EYES – the group keep doing

whatever the last instruction was – forwards, backwards etc. –
with eyes closed and without breaking formation or changing
pace or the spacing between each individual. This involves
strong mental concentration. Don't use this command with or
immediately after the CHANGE command.

• Move on to games that depend on everyone working together.

They can be useful not just for group collaboration but also for
seeing the potential of a particular group movement for
inclusion in the building of a devised project.

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 MONSTER

This game works well with people of any age and involves every student
sitting on a chair scattered randomly around the room.

• Use the whole space available.

• One person is chosen to be the Monster and goes to the far

end of the room.

• When given the go-ahead to move, the Monster will attempt to

sit down on any free chair, starting with his/her own vacated
chair. The group have to work together to prevent him/her for
as long as possible.

• There are only two rules:

1. The Monster can only walk whilst others can run if they think
it necessary.
2. Once someone has vacated a chair, he/she may not sit back
down again on that particular chair.

• The latter is the killer rule. So often a student will get up,
focusing on the fact that the Monster is heading for an empty
chair; he wants to sit in it to prevent the Monster doing so, but
by getting up he has allowed the Monster to shorten his journey
and to sit in that recently vacated chair instead! Groans all
round.

• When you first play this game with a group, the average time
for preventing the Monster sitting down is about a minute and
the whole group is running around like headless
chickens! Practice means they start to improve, especially on
the need to think and to work with the rest of the group.

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 GRANDMOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS WITHOUT
GRANDMOTHER

This is a good exercise in memory as well as ensemble movement work.

• Play the game of Grandmother’s Footsteps.

• One person stands at one end of the room with his/her back to
the rest of the group. This is Grandmother.

• Tell the rest of the group to start the furthest end away from
Grandmother. They will attempt to creep up on and be the first
to touch him/her on the shoulder. The person who gets there
first wins and becomes the next Grandmother.

• Grandmother can turn around at any point to try to catch the

group out. As soon as Grandmother turns, the group freeze, but
if he/she detects any movement, the mover is sent back to the
beginning.

• Eliminate Grandmother after playing one round and ask the

group to remember what happened before in order to
reconstruct the game imagining Grandmother.

• By concentrating hard, they will use their group awareness to

stop and start at the same time. This is much harder than it
sounds. It becomes an invaluable tool for increasing the
physical awareness of the whole group and their positions in
the room, as well as their memory.

• Once a group knows they may be asked to remember their

‘journey’ during a game, they start to focus much harder – so
play this game again, first with and then without Grandmother.

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 MEXICAN WAVES

This game involves good group co-operation.

• Start with a classic two-armed 'wave' with the whole class in a

circle. Each student stands straight with both palms resting
together on the left thigh.

• The person chosen to begin the movement circles both arms

together over his/her head and down to rest against his/her
right thigh. The next person around starts when the first one's
arms have reached the highest point – and so it goes on until
the last one has been reached.

• Do this movement twice round, to make sure that the original

leader has a chance to follow.

• Vary this by having the class in two staggered lines facing each
other and ask them to progress the movement back and forth
across the lines so that, if all one line was counted in odd
numbers and all the other in even ones, the wave begins with
one, goes opposite to two, progresses diagonally opposite to
three, diagonally opposite again to four, and so on.

• It is essential that the whole move is explored by everyone first

and then that each person begins their repetition of the move
at the same point.

• Try a harder sequence of moves, such as this going-to-bed

sequence:
1. Three rubs of the face to denote washing.
2. Three up and down scrubs of the teeth with an imaginary
toothbrush.
3. Long yawn to the count of three, with hand patting the front
of the mouth three times.

10


4. To the count of three, folding the hands and placing them

under the tilted head for sleep.

• Try this all together at first to establish the speed and rhythm,
before staggering it as a group sequence where each one
starts when the one before begins on his teeth.

• Give each member of the class a number in sequence from one

to however many you have in the group and ask them to scatter
around the room completely randomly.

• Clap your hands, or beat a drum or tambour if you have one,

and keep the rhythm strict, SLOW and even throughout. The
students are to repeat the previous sequence in the same order
as before, even though they are no longer next to the same
people. They will need to count fiercely in their heads.

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 CONNECTING NUMBERS

If your class is a large one, you will know that their eventual group project
will involve smaller numbers. Divide them up through a game as follows.
The game ensures that they have to work with a random, rather than pre-
planned, group of people.

• Get the whole group to move around the room at a fast pace.
They must concentrate on not bumping into anyone.

• Keep going until all are doing this and are matching each
other’s pace.

• Instruct that you are going to throw out random numbers from
two up to ten, while they continue to move at the same strict
pace.

• When a number is called out, it is a race to see who establishes

that exact number and then sits on the floor.

• The first complete group to sit, all linked by touch, is the winner.
They must call 'Finished', at which point everyone else freezes.
It doesn’t matter if it was impossible for everyone to achieve the
number.

The group that has finished has to make an instant shape of

anything you like to suggest, such as:

1. A letter of the alphabet or a number – this is a still shape.

2. A boat in a storm – this can have added movement and
even sound.
3. Tired and wounded soldiers after a battle – a still tableau.
4. Bacon frying in a pan – with added movement and sound.

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 SHAPES AND SOUNDS

After you have thrown out a few numbers and there have been a few
winners, and a few group tableaux – moving or still – call a number that is
as near feasible as possible: four or five, for example. This time, these
people are going to have to work together for the rest of the session –
though do not tell them this until the groups are complete.

• Give each group a title. For each title, the group needs to work
together to come up with a suitable movement, or series of
movements, done by everyone, which may be accompanied
by a sound or by repeated sounds.

Some ideas for titles are:

• Scandal
• Suspicion
• Anger
• Frustration
• Boredom
• Ambition
• Greed.

• For example, SCANDAL might involve the group linked

together across the stage by their fingertips on extended arms.
They are sound waves. The sound of scandal – perhaps done
by noises or single repeated words – is punctuated by
ringtones or by repeated poses of delighted shock.

• ANGER might involve breaking down a series of staccato, sharp

moves and creating a Mexican Wave impression of an angry
crowd.

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 Doing a variety of group movements like the above are good
examples of finding different ways of moving and of keeping up the
idea of spontaneity or surprise. In chorus work, or the linking of
scenes in a group project, such group movements can be especially
useful.

FINAL EVALUATION

Make sure that the session ends with an evaluative discussion.

• What worked and what didn't as part of the last group movement?
• How could each be improved?
• How well did the group work together?

It is imperative that any evaluative criticism is worded in a discursive and

mature way. Criticism should be in the spirit of creative suggestion, not
ever meant as a put-down to any group or individual.

RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

Look at the variety of resources on Frantic Assembly that are available on

Digital Theatre+ which include:

• A whole play: Things I Know To Be True by Andrew Bovell.

• An interesting interview with Scott Graham, the Artistic Director of
Frantic Assembly.
• An essay and an introduction to the group's methods by Aleks Sierz.

Coming Soon: An introductory guide to Kneehigh.

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SESSION TWO: RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT

Objectives: This session builds on the last. It aims to further the

idea of collaborative group movement and to introduce the
importance of pace and rhythm to show that the beginnings of
character and situation can be accessed this way.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• A football, or similar sized ball.

15
 WARM-UP

The focus needed to work in a collaborative way is found most immediately

through an initial warm-up game. By immersion in the game, the group
forget the outside world of the school or college and leave their concerns
behind.

• Repeat one of the games or the opening exercise introduced in

Session One, or play a simple tag game.

• Name Tag is a good one. It is high energy and, out of the

adrenaline produced, concentration comes.

• For Name Tag, the group plays just like an ordinary tag game.
The difference is that the victim about to be tagged saves
himself by calling out the name of someone else in the group.
That person immediately becomes ‘It'. This helps the problem
with most tags which is that ‘It' tires too quickly.

• This game is also good for group awareness. The victim shows
awareness of where people are in the room by calling out, if
they are sensible, the name of someone as far away from them
as possible!

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 BOUNCE-BALL

• Stand in a circle. Number every person in the circle one to

however many are in the group.

• Number one holds a football. He/she calls out a number within

the group and immediately throws the ball to bounce in the
centre of the circle.

• The person whose number was called must catch it before it

bounces a second time, then throw it to another person in the
circle.

• Once you feel the students are concentrating and are

becoming accustomed to the game, try to establish a strict
rhythm for it.

• Call...bounce...catch...throw...call...bounce...catch...throw., etc.

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 BOUNCE-BALL WITH MOVEMENT

• Next, the group breaks out of the circle and starts to move
around the room.

• Even though someone will be holding the ball, don't start to use
it until the whole group is moving in the same rhythm. Keep it
quite slow, so that it is not too difficult to avoid bumping
into other people.

• Try to establish the rhythm with the ball being bounced,

someone close by catching it, bouncing it for another to catch,
and so on.

• Numbers are not used this time; it is proximity to the thrower that
matters. But note – there can be long bounces if there is space
between people to do so.

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 BOUNCE-BALL MIME

• Get back into the circle and put the ball aside.

• Try to establish the movement of the ball as it is bounced and

caught and bounced and caught again, but this time the ball is
imaginary.

• Eye contact is important and, as always, focus from every

member of the circle.

MIMED FOOTBALL

• Play a team game, dividing the class into half, where – as in

football – the ball has to be kicked into the goal of an end wall.
But the ball is imaginary. Of course, each team must collaborate
to kick the ball 'into' the far end 'goal'.

• Work together as a group to establish the reality and positioning

of the ball. An onlooker should be able to 'see' the ball's
progress at all times.

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 TENNIS CHARACTERS

• Divide into pairs. With an odd number, one could play against
two.

• With an imaginary ball, plus an imaginary racket, play tennis

with your partner. Concentrate on where the ball is. An
observer should 'see' it at all times.

• Vary your shots between slower volleys, lobs, slams and

serves.

• Match sounds or syllables to the shots. For instance, a server

might bounce the ball a few times; ‘pa, pa, pa', make a slam of
a serve – an aggressive ‘Dah', the return – 'pyow' etc.

• See if you can develop some characters as this match

progresses. Don't stop and plan. See what starts to emerge by
DOING. It may be that one player starts to become aggressive
and angry, as he misses shots or sees himself losing. His
partner might be cocky, or just happy, or even apologetic – he
was trying to lose to please his partner but…etc.

• See what occurs naturally. See if a scenario begins to develop.

Play it out into the aftermath of the match if you can. You can
continue to use sounds and develop into a gobbledygook
based on these, or you can use actual speech if desired.

• Show these to the rest of the group - as many as you have time
for. If time is limited, concentrate on one or two pairs only, since
it is important to discuss the process of finding a character in this
way: through physicality and doing, rather than through pre-
planning.

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 RHYTHMIC TASKS

• Choose a shared activity in pairs.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Folding a sheet
2. Making up a bed
3. Washing and drying dishes
4. Carrying an awkward or heavy object
5. Helping someone remove a coat or tight boots
6. Packing or unpacking a large box with books or CDs.

Once the rhythm of the activity is established, see what

characters also emerge:

• What is the relationship between the two characters?

• A family one?
• Friends?
• Strangers?

• With an odd number in the group, a trio may be necessary, but

don't allow more than one, since three will change the dynamic
enormously. If you do need a group of three, then make sure
that the different dynamic is discussed at the end.

• For this exercise, it is imperative to start with the mime alone.

Let that run until a rhythm is established before they venture
into speech. Again there must be no conference at the start.
The characters emerge out of the activity and will be more
interesting for that.

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FINAL EVALUATION

Make sure that the session is discussed and evaluated at the end:

• Did they find it easy to make the transition from activity to character?

RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

• Look at the interview with Amit Lahav, Artistic Director of Gecko

Theatre on Digital Theatre+.

Gecko is Physical Theatre, verging on Dance Theatre. Movement and

rhythm is key to the company, particularly the rhythm of breathing. Like
Antonin Artaud, Lahav talks of communicating an emotion through audible
breathing and thus 'sharing' the rhythm and emotion with the audience.
Artaud used the idea of 'infecting' an audience through rhythm and
breathing, a similar idea. Lahav worked with Steven Berkoff for a time –
another link. There is much of interest in this interview and much, also, that
has echoes from other practitioners of the past.

• If you are interested in finding out more about Artaud's ideas, there
is a DramaWorks resource: Artaud Through Practice.

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SESSION THREE: RELEASING THE IMAGINATION

Objectives: Building on the last two sessions, collaboration and

rhythm is linked with trust and generosity to encourage the
expansion and free association of ideas to emerge.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• Enough chairs for each student.
• Drum or tambourine (optional).

Like the last session, you will be using rhythm. In this session, a relentless
beat helps to block off any inclination to logicalise or pre-plan. Room for
surprising connections is thus encouraged. Inhibitions will begin to be
broken down.

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 WARM-UP

• Try the following Augusto Boal exercise as your warm-up for

this session. Once again, you are ensuring that you begin by
affirming group bonding, always the starting point for the
devising process.

• This exercise, called Hypnotism, ends with an interesting

group movement, which may suggest all sorts of images. Like
all Boal exercises, it starts small and goes through a variety
of permutations before it ends with the whole group
participating.

Start with pairs, calling the pairs A and B:

• A puts up the palm of his hand and faces it outward,

towards B.
• B puts the tip of his nose about half an inch away from that
palm.
• Both A and B have their feet firmly planted on the floor;
they cannot move them. From now on, B’s nose must
remain that distance away, whatever A does. He is
hypnotised by that palm – obsessed by it.

• Like all Boal exercises, the work the pair do together is about
co-operation; there is never an intention for A to try to catch
B out, so A must make all the moves of his palm possible for B
to do without breaking his hypnotised state.
Movements, therefore, must be slow and serene – slow
bending of B’s body back, to the sides, up and down, forward
and back.

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• A and B swap after a couple of minutes.

• The next stage of the exercise involves threes, where the A

character works two Bs with both palms of their hands. Here,
you begin to get some interesting patterning of movement.

• Move on to fours or fives. Here, A lies on the floor and uses the
palms of the hands and the soles of his feet to work the Bs.

• Finish with the whole group. Here, the A figure simply stands
in the centre of the room and moves his arms and body in very
slow undulations. The rest of the group, who are all Bs, watch
and become hypnotised by some part of A’s anatomy (!),
placing their nose as close to it as they can without touching.

• Discourage a dive into the centre by everyone; the slow pace

must be adhered to. The Bs move in in their own time in a
gentle trance-like manner.

• When all are attached, instruct A to very slowly rotate 360

degrees, whilst still undulating his/her whole body. The result
is a mass of people undulating like seaweed in a gentle
current. At this point, the group can add appropriate sound if
they like.

• Note that for a large group, you can ask people to become
hypnotised to a part of one of the Bs that are already attached;
sometimes it is not possible for everyone to become attached
to A. The results are the same, but the larger the group, the
slower A has to rotate.

• [N.B. Those following the asterisk* route can cut out some of the
stages of the above exercise. In this case move from the pairs
straight to the whole group hypnotism.]

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 OBSESSION

• The group mills around the room at a calm and relatively slow
pace to begin with. As you mill, you pass by others in the group.
Every time you come close to someone you greet them in a
friendly way.

• Instead of speech, use the sounds and intonations of greeting

through gobbledygook language. Gradually, however, the
friendliness grows and becomes more obsessive; at the same
time, the pace steps up a little.

• The aim is to reach a state of obsessiveness, where people

cannot leave the person they are with – they are in a frenzy of
excitement, hugging, jumping on shoulders in their joy, and so
on. The noise level at this point is tremendous!

• Experienced groups can hear when the level has reached as

high as it can go: number ten on a scale of one to ten. At
that point, everyone stops dead, goes silent, and moves to the
outer edges of the room facing the walls.

• To do this exercise successfully, for each step up in pace and

in obsessiveness the students need to remain aware of the
whole group at all times; they need to be listening to the sound
levels around them all the time so as to stay in tune with what’s
going on; they need to be watching, using that peripheral
vision, to make sure their pace and the size of their movements
correspond with everyone else’s. The exercise is hard.

26
There was quite a high degree of physical contact in the last
exercise. This can only be done successfully if the group trust each
other. Improvisation can only work when there is trust and
generosity between the performers.

It is generosity that furthers an idea rather than squashing it. Thus,

in a dialogue which begins with A saying: “Have you seen the
monster living at the bottom of my garden?”

B might answer “No,” but needs to add “But I'd like to” or something
equally encouraging. “No” is a slammed door. It is hard to progress
an improvisation if the door keeps shutting in your face.

Trust comes from knowing that the person you are 'playing' with is
doing everything he can to keep the ball in the air, to keep things
going.

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 GROUP STORY

Follow your warm-up with an exercise which encourages this kind of

generosity.

• Stand or sit on the floor in a circle.

• Tell a story around the circle, each one adding a goodly piece
to that story.

• Encourage the storytellers to demonstrate or physicalise what

they are saying, miming any objects needed. The story must be
concentrated on and make sense. The door must not be
slammed on any element of it, but every attempt must be made
to weave it in. This requires concentration and, above all, the
desire to make something work and a respect for all ideas put
forward.

• The following group of exercises shows how preventing pre-

planning can release the imagination and allow for surprising
and unusual connections to be made. It is these kind of
connections that need to be encouraged to develop into a
thought-provoking devised project.

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 HAPHAZARD CONNECTIONS

• Divide the group into pairs: A and B. If you have an odd

number, there can be two Bs. They are to face each other
with an imaginary large box between them.

• A opens the box and begins to pull things out of it. These
imaginary items can be anything at all, however absurd.
The task is to keep pulling one thing after another out of
the box…oranges, a fridge, a pair of shoes, a dog etc. No
attempt at realism or accurate mime is required. There
must be no chance to pre-plan.

• B (or both Bs) encourage and, if necessary, fill in the gaps with
a suggestion of their own. It is about quick thinking and
keeping a flow going.

• THERE MUST BE NO PAUSE. Each pair should try to establish

a good, fast rhythm. It will be B who makes sure that the
rhythm is maintained and doesn't flag by encouraging noises
and gestures.

• Swap over after a minute or two. Here, if you have two Bs,
they have the harder task of alternating, without breaking the
rhythm.

• You will find that this will take a short time at first. The rhythm
will break down. Swap over each time it does. Keep swapping
over until the pairs can manage longer – at least half a minute
– without breaking down. This may sound like a short time
but try it on your own before giving this to the group to do; it
is not easy!

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 HAPHAZARD CONNECTIONS 2

• Have one or two pairs at a time walking around the room to a

rhythm established either by the teacher or by the rest of the
group.

• Start with a slow walking-pace rhythm. The exercise is

otherwise like the last one, where nouns are said in time to the
beat, with no pauses for thought and no break in the
established rhythm. Start slow until they are working well with
the idea.

• Using a relaxed beat, they should sound as though they are

having a conversation on a country walk in the sunshine,
plucking words in a leisurely fashion out of the air.

• Move onto a slightly faster rhythm with the next pair or pairs.
The rhythm should suggest to the participants the tone of the
'conversation' they are having.

• With each new pair, the rhythm gets faster, until the final one is
a frantic pace suggestive of panic or rage.

• Encourage the group to talk about their findings with this

exercise: How did the beat which you established for them to
work to influence the feeling they had and, possibly, the words
and links that emerged?

30
These exercises encourage 'letting go': of inhibition, of logic.
Surprising things will happen and surprising connections be made.
They also enhance the need to work together in a focused way, as
well as the need to find the rhythm of a scene. Every dialogue,
every moment of a play, whether textual or improvised has its own
rhythm, which is only partly made by dialogue. The spaces between
the dialogue and the subtext behind the dialogue also have their
own rhythms, often conflicting.

31
 TEMPO-RHYTHM

Next, we are going to develop the above exercise into short sections of
dialogue.

• Start with movement: have the group move individually around

the room.

• Establish a slow solemn beat by clapping or with your drum.

• Talk about how you are a person in a situation or location that

is suggested by the beat.

• Ask them to freeze in a pose suggested by the way you have

been moving.

• Do this two or three times – move, freeze and move again,

keeping to the same rhythm.

• Talk to people about who they were, and where, or in what

situation.

• Try a medium, neutral speed. Once again, keep going as they

move as individuals around the room until it is clear from their
faces and the way they hold themselves that they have started
to become someone in a particular situation.

• Try a slightly faster rhythm. It could be a dotted rhythm, jerky.

Their legs and bodies should try to follow that rhythm, until they
have it.

32
• A good way into a more complex beat like this is through
breathing. Don't start to move until your breathing, to match the
syncopated rhythm, has started to suggest who you are and in
what situation or place.

• Try an even faster rhythm. This will be more instant and will
quickly suggest a person and a place or situation.

• In every case, stop and talk with group about their findings.

This last is pure Stanislavsky! It is what he means by tempo-rhythm.

By the end of his long career, Stanislavsky was beginning to agree
with Meyerhold and others that emotion and the key traits of
character could be accessed more quickly than any other way
through rhythm and/or pace. He died before the ideas could be fully
developed, but Meyerhold and others carried the idea on and it
forms the basis for much modern Physical Theatre thinking.

33
 CHARACTER AND SPEECH THROUGH
IMITATION OF WATER

• Finish with an exercise which may help you access a character

and move it into a brief monologue, by means of rhythmic
movement. This exercise has echoes of Jacques LeCoq and of
Complicité.

Think of all the various forms of movement that water makes:

• Crashing waves
• Babbling streams
• Calm, still reflective lakes.

• Each student is to stand, or sit on the floor quietly, in a space

not facing anyone.

Think of water:
1. Choose an aspect of water.
2. Allow your body to reflect the aspect of water you are
thinking of. Allow that watery mood to fill your entire body
and move with it.
3. Move around the room.

• Start to make the sounds that fit your choice of water, whether
it is fast and babbling, or angry and assaulting the shoreline or
peacefully moving in and out with a hushing stir of pebbles or
lying calm and placid, gently lapping against some obstacle but
full of hidden depths.

• It should be clear from the movement and sounds when the

students are beginning to 'find' a character through this
method. Extremely different and interesting characters can
emerge. Allow a few of them to begin to speak.

34
• Though the movements may be toned down a little, something
of it needs to remain as part of the character. For instance, the
babbling brook may spill over into babbling speech, hardly
pausing for breath, but the spilling and overflowing gestures
need to be part of it.

35
 CHARACTER AND SPEECH THROUGH
IMITATION OF A BALLOON

• Try a similar exercise which this time uses the movement of

a gas-filled balloon being held down by its string and then let
go to be carried away by the breeze.

• Once again, the students start by individually becoming the

balloon. It is an activity that feels liberating to perform. It opens
up the chest and allows for a very different type of movement
to that of water.

• Make sure that they all feel the confinement of being held
down by the string when all they want to do is to float away.
Then they will feel the full effect of being let go.

• Of course, not all students will react the same way to freedom;
some may feel lost and panicky. Whatever the reaction, a set
of feelings will emerge which can be formed into a character in
a particular situation.

• When the transformation into a speaking character is made,

the movement needs also to be retained.

36
FINAL EVALUATION
As always, make sure there is time for discussion and evaluation at the
end.

• What do they think about this approach into character?

• Can they see the value of finding characters and character
movement that is out of the ordinary?
• What value in general arises from surprising an audience?

RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

• Students might find interesting the interview with Alecky Blythe, who
specialises in Verbatim Theatre. Since Stanislavsky is mentioned in
this session, the idea of using interview techniques with real people
to create a piece of devised theatre might give them ideas of yet
another way in to building a devised script.

• Boal, Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, LeCoq and Complicité are all

mentioned here and are all practitioners or companies listed by the
examination boards.

There are DramaWorks resources with work on all of these:

• Stanislavsky Through Practice

• Boal is in Styletasters 2
• The other three are all in Exploring Physical Theatre.

37
SESSION FOUR: TWO+ONE

Objectives: Building on the last session, this hour aims to further

characterisation and encourage dialogue. The dynamic changes
made by the introduction of an extra character or characters are
explored. The session starts with naturalistic characters and then
begins the journey into more physical methods of accessing
character and speech.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• Drum or tambour (optional).
• Two or three chairs.

38
 WARM-UP WITH DIALOGUE

• Imagine the floor is divided up like a piece of graph-paper into

straight lines. Movement can only be along these lines, with any
turns being sharp ones, keeping to the grid.

• Maintain a strict pace, initiated by a drum or hand-clap. If some

look as though they are on a collision course, evasive action
must be taken, keeping to the sharp angles and lines of the
grid, but the established pace and rhythm of movement must
not be broken.

• Vary the speed of this so that very fast movement – but not out-
of-control running – is interspersed with slower speeds.

• When they are used to the grid, instruct that on the next hand-
clap they will make their way to the person nearest to them.

Give them one of the following situations, to begin a dialogue:

1. Strangers meeting at a party.
2. Strangers meeting at an important conference.
3. At a bus-stop, where one is in a hurry and the other laid-
back.
4. Two solo people in a queue for a very sexually explicit
movie – who suddenly realise they know each other.
5. Strangers in a lift when it suddenly stops between floors.
6. Strangers waiting outside the crowded changing-rooms to
try on the same hat/ dress/ pair of shoes.
7. People recognising each other as former school-friends that
they haven't seen for a while.

39
• Keep the dialogue brief – a few seconds only – before they
have to go back into the grid until the next signal to stop, when
again they find the nearest person – a different one if possible
each time.

FURTHERING THE DIALOGUE

• Ask the students to choose one of the dialogue starters they

tried out so briefly.

• This time, with a partner, they are to develop it further. They will
quickly discover that it probably won't get far. Don't warn them
of this – it is a discovery they ought to make themselves. Show
as many as you need to make this point and then allow the
students to discuss why they think it runs out of steam.

The first question to ask, however, before general discussion is:

• Did the dialogue develop as far as it possibly could?
• Did each one of the partners remain generous to the other
and seek to keep things going?
• They will soon realise that something else is needed, but
what?

40
 ADD ONE CHARACTER

• Repeat the most successful of these dialogues, but this time

prime a third student that he/she is to find a way of entering the
scene with the express idea of changing the mood or situation.
See how far this third person can alter and enliven the scene.

• Note that it is better if the entry of the third person is a surprise

to those performing the chosen dialogue. That way there can be
no pre-planning.

ADD MORE CHARACTERS

• Start with two people having a conversation – choose another

one of the dialogue situations from earlier and ask them to
begin.

• Meanwhile, prime three further students, giving them numbers

one to three, to enter in order. Each one should wait until they
think the scene is flagging and then come in, having chosen a
character which will advance the situation and make it more
interesting.

Discuss the differences this made:

• Did everybody prove adaptable?

• Was everyone generous?

• 41
The main point to bring out of this work is that whatever the
situation, if you are using naturalistic characters, there needs to be
conflict or a difference of opinion of some kind. This is so even in a
monologue, where the character is usually having a conversation
with himself and putting over two or more points of view, or he is
raging against someone who is not present - a god, or Fate perhaps.

• Revisit the discussion on the earlier exercises. If any managed

to last longer than a couple of minutes, what was the reason?

42
 A DETAILED SCENARIO WITH
ADD-ON CHARACTERS

I have adapted and enlarged upon an exercise that Stanislavsky

proposed, because it is a good one to use as an example of how to keep
an action lively and entertaining. Note that, though the main character is a
woman in the following description, the whole thing can be altered to fit
the gender of your group.

Try out the following situation:

A woman has argued with her husband and, during the course of
the argument, he tripped over and hit his head against a corner of
the mantelpiece. It killed him. She had nothing to do with his death,
but who is going to believe her? They live in an apartment block
and people may have heard them argue. In a panic, she wraps the
body in her beautiful Turkish rug, which lay before the fireplace
and, as she hears a knock on the door, she thrusts the body in the
rug under the sofa. It fits fairly well, but the end of the rug, covering
his shod feet, sticks out a little from one corner.

This is where we start the action, which can work with a couple of
chairs together to represent the sofa. The woman is trying to fit
her dead husband under the sofa when there is a knock on the
door. The apartment block is a well-to-do one. Our lady
remembers that she invited a friend or two to morning coffee,
because her husband is supposed to be out playing golf.

In order, bring in a couple of friends, one at a time. They know the

flat well and may notice the absence of that rug. They will certainly
move around and get dangerously close to that corner!

A further knock on the door heralds someone from the next-door

apartment, who heard the argument and wants to check that
everything is all right. You can bring in as many people as you
want to this situation. A good one is the husband's golfing partner
who is concerned because he hasn't turned up.

43
Suspense is kept up by the audience being in the know. Much
depends on the leading character, who needs to help build
suspense every time anyone comes close to that corner of the sofa
from where her husband's feet, inside the rug, protrude. Choose a
capable actor for this. She must have the skill to remember that on
the inside she is working in a tempo-rhythm of panic, which is being
disguised so far as the actor is able. Yet that panic will emerge at
times, when she fears discovery, and will add to the suspense.

• Try the scene out as a test to keeping a scenario running as

long as the energy lasts.

• Did anyone in the group attempt to find a resolution of the

situation, an ending? Or did it run out of steam before that could
happen?

Everyone began by knowing the scenario here. That makes this

exercise different from all previous ones, where the performers
were having to think on their feet from the start, in the hopes that a
story would emerge out of what they were doing.

Both the models we have looked at mimic in a very small, contained

way what many devising companies do. Some will improvise with
characters and hope that a story will emerge and find them. Others
will choose a story or situation as the basis for their devised play.
The characters will emerge through improvisation and the situation
explored from every angle until the 'right' mix and approach is
finally decided on.

44


FINAL EVALUATION

When you have had a group try out the above scenario, discuss with the
whole class, some of whom will have remained as audience for this
exercise, whether it could be expanded further.

• In what ways?
• Might there be room for a spin-off into the other characters' lives?
• Would it end up a comedy or a tragedy?

This discussion too will mimic the kind of way the whole group needs to
work throughout the devising process.

RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

• Watch the interview with Dawn Walton, Director of the Sheffield-

based Eclipse Theatre.

The company aims to bring to light the stories of the Black British
experience. This might give students ideas of how few white residents in
the UK know what it is like for different races living alongside them. An
interesting group project might arise out of telling one of these hidden
stories. Perhaps this could be linked with the idea of Verbatim Theatre,
researched in the last session: real people talking about their own
experiences, honed into a compelling piece of devised theatre.

45
SESSION FIVE: STARTING WITH CHARACTERS

Objectives: Building on the last session, which put character

together with particular situations, the aim of this session is to
experiment with a mix of characters in search of a story. The idea
of dialogue through physical theatre methods explored in the last
session is also developed further.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• A prepared pack of cards (including King/Queen and Ace plus
a variety of numbers in between, according to the numbers in
your group).

Most devising comes out of improvisation. Sitting and talking about an idea
at too early a stage of development will freeze the idea dead in the water.
Devising must be an active process, involving all members of the group.
Gecko Theatre and Kneehigh, for instance, both have their technical crew
as integral parts of the devising process. They work with the actors from
the beginning.

Likewise, even if some of the group are not involved as characters in a

particular scene, they need to be active participants on the sidelines. They
might be jotting down promising lines or movements from an improvisation
that is underway. They might even further that improvisation, as temporary
directors, if the actors look as though they are flagging or going around in
circles. Then one might call out, “Go back to that moment when …” or “Try
this activity…” or similar. This is what it means to be an active participant,
even while watching others in your group trying out a scene. You are not
taking over the action – that action belongs to those who are
experimenting with it; you are attempting to further it, or to refresh it.

46


For the purposes of your examination, even those students who are more
involved as technicians need to take an active part, as described above.
Similarly, all actors need to think of the technical details and have a say in
every area of the creative purpose. After all, your final devised piece will
be judged on whether it works as a finished piece of theatre. That means
it has to include all the elements of theatre that are necessary to make it
as good as it possibly can be.

If all of your group are going to end up performing, it is perfectly

permissible to have someone working your lights and sound, for instance.
But if that is the case, it is even more important that the whole group has
planned these areas and given time to training the person who is going to
produce those things you are unable to do. Wherever possible, take a leaf
out of Kneehigh's book, who always find a way for the actors not taking
part in a scene to change the lights or turn on a recording of music or alter
the set. Often, these are done quite openly and are woven into the fabric
of the production, for example, as part of a dance or movement sequence.

In these last two sessions we are going to look at alternative starting points
for the devising process. Most of these alternatives result in extreme or
interesting characters. So, rather than being led by a story or situation, we
will explore whether coming up with a group of diverse characters might
be profitable ground for a project.

47
 VOCAL WARM-UP

Start with one of the brief warm-ups from earlier sessions, or a simple tag,
to focus them, then move on to a warm-up of the voice as follows:

• Stand in a circle.

• Mime bouncing a smallish rubber ball with the hand,

accompanying the movement with an appropriate sound,
such as “Bap, bap, bap”, or “Dab, dab, dab.”

• Make eye contact with someone else in the circle and throw,
bounce or roll the ball to that person.

• Each movement of the ball needs to be accompanied by a

suitable sound.

• Keep this ball moving around the circle with each new
recipient of the ball inventing sounds to accompany the way
they pass the ball on.

• Move onto a mimed beach ball, done in similar fashion and

finally a mimed (rubber-tipped!) arrow, shot at someone from
a bow. Each time, the sound must be projected at a recipient,
along with eye-contact.

• Encourage invention and experiment with a broad range of

sounds.

48
 SOUNDS WITH EMOTION

Still in a circle, explore the sounds that might denote:

1. Anger
2. Boredom
3. Apology
4. Greed
5. Kindness.

• Encourage as experimental a range of sounds as you can.

• Use the tongue, lips, teeth, throat to explore whirrs, clicks,

hums, buzzes – all coloured with the chosen emotion.

• Watch how facial expressions and body language become

clearer and more extreme through this exercise, especially as
the students become used to the idea and gain confidence.

• This exercise and the following can be linked into Berkoff or to

Artaud, in particular.

49
 SCENARIO USING VOCAL SOUND

Using sound to denote speech encourages physicality when

starting out with characters. Consider this as a scenario:
A car driver has manoeuvred into a tight space and knocked into
the bumper of another car. The driver of that car witnessed the
event. Now he/she accosts the driver, as the latter leaves the car.
An argument ensues. Only sounds can be used.

Explore as many of the following combinations as you can,

noticing how the argument changes accordingly:
1. Both people angry.
2. One angry, one apologetic and conciliatory.
3. One very unconfident, the other full of self-importance.
4. One in a hurry, the other meticulous, wanting all the details
sorted.

• This exercise not only encourages experiment but also shows

how in any scenario there can be many ways of moving the
scene on, led by choice of characters.

Gobbledygook or sounds instead of words can be dipped in and

out of, even when other parts of a scenario are in ordinary speech.
It is another useful tool, especially when you want to underline a
particularly physical or emotional moment.

There are many ways of experimenting with characters where

promising storylines or scenarios can emerge. There will not be
time to explore all of these now but try at least one of the following.

50
 EXERCISE USING STATUS

• Prepare a pack of cards (according to your group numbers) with

a range of numbers and court cards, where the King is the
highest and Ace the lowest. This is an exercise which Max
Stafford-Clark used during the initial rehearsals where actors
are devising around a situation suggested by a script.

• Try either scenario a) or b):

a) A bunch of soldiers are waiting for their general to come

and put them through their paces. They try a number of
manoeuvres, with very mixed (and possibly comical) results.
The general will be the King. There will be a clear bottom of
the pile: an idiot who gets everything wrong. There will also
be a high-ish number, such as 10, who might be bossy and
try to organise everyone. Others will squabble amongst
themselves to assert their own status.

b) The servants of a large country home are waiting to meet

their new mistress, (the Queen) who has just married the
master of the house (the King). The Butler (Number 10
perhaps) wants everything to go slickly. Everyone wants to
be noticed and is vying for position, but the Ace – well,
they'll be lucky to get through without some mishap.

• Try to mix sound and words, where appropriate in the above

scenarios.

51
 USING ARCHETYPES

Companies like Kneehigh often use archetypal characters. These fit

particularly well with their chosen source material, which are usually myths,
legends or folktales.

Consider a mix of archetypal characters like the following:

1. Mother
2. Father
3. Hero
4. Heroine
5. King
6. Fool
7. Trickster (who may be called the Devil).

• There are a number of 'characters' here who might consider

themselves to be the highest status. Out of this may come the
essential ingredient of conflict. Conflict works especially well
with characters of equal or near-equal status. Thus, in pairings
of Mother and Father, or Hero and Heroine, or King and Hero,
or Trickster, and any of these, each might consider themselves
the wisest, the best, the most important or of the highest status.

• Using these pairings can cause both conflict and interest. In

addition, in many folktales it is the Fool who comes out on top,
because the Fool – often called the ‘Innocent’ – has a kind of
straight-forwardness and naiveté which often leads to a kind of
wisdom.

• To finish, use one of these suggested pairings and have each

vying for the highest status. Then bring in a third character. See
if you can judge when '+ one' becomes necessary to move
things along.

52
 • You can use the situation of an adult folktale, such as the
Mother and Father squabbling over the fate of who their
daughter (the Heroine) will marry. The Father favours an
arranged marriage which will bring riches or increased land for
himself, while the Mother wants her daughter's help around
the house or with the younger children for as long as possible.
However, the Heroine wants something else entirely…

• Or you can translate these characters into an entirely modern

setting, e.g. the Trickster thinks to con the Hero out of his
wallet. The Hero is rather vain and not too bright, and things
look good for the Trickster, but in blunders the Fool, who
inadvertently saves the day for the Hero.

• Once again, consider the use of sound instead of words at

appropriate times.

FINAL EVALUATION

As always, finish with a good few minutes of evaluative discussion:

• What worked for them and what didn't?

• Why?
• Does mixing physical theatre tools (such as, in this case, sound
instead of words) help make an ordinary scene more memorable?

53


RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

• Following on from the last research suggestion, which involved

looking at Eclipse Theatre, watch the interview with Jenny Sealey,
the Director of Graeae. This company has been going for many years
and caters for actors with disabilities. Its aim is to challenge audience
preconceptions of disability.

• As with stories of the Black experience in Britain, students may find it

interesting to consider stories from the point of view of a blind or deaf
person for example. Though Jenny Sealey does not talk about the
experience of devising within the group in detail, she does say that
they usually start with a script and adapt it for their purposes.

• The practitioners and companies referred to in the above session are

all on the examining board lists: Artaud, Berkoff, Max Stafford-Clark
(a director associated usually with naturalism, who often uses
Stanislavskian techniques) and Kneehigh Theatre.

54


SESSION SIX: SPACE AND ENVIRONMENT

Objectives: With a final clutch of practical tools and ideas, the aim
of this session is for individual groups to come up with a short
scene which uses the tools and ingredients introduced in previous
sessions. For this project, the extra ingredient of environment is
thrown into the mix.

Length: 60-75 minutes. For shorter sessions, take the DT+

FAST ROUTE and follow the exercises with the clock icon.

What you will need:

• Plenty of floor space in which to work, with no clutter.
• A variety of props, costume accessories and other items for
building or suggesting both environments and characters.
• A full list of these are preceded in bold on the following page.
Make your own selection from the list, ensuring that there are
enough items for each group to have at least one from each
category.

55
 WARM-UP

This warm-up will involve moving around the empty space of

the studio using the Tension States:

• The Tension States are another well-known way of playing with

and discovering characters. The idea is that according to the
physical tension of the actor's muscles, characters can be
suggested or accessed.

• Start with all the students finding a place on the floor.

• Stand in neutral position, feet at hip's width apart facing

forward, body and head straight and facing front.

• Bend at the waist and slowly relax the upper muscles until the
torso feels relaxed and heavy.

• Start to bend the knees so that the relaxed hands hover just
above the floor.

• Tense the hands enough to help your weight transfer so that

you support yourself until you are lying on the floor.

• Allow the body, still as floppy as possible, to roll onto the back.

• Tense the muscles section by section, starting with the feet and
moving upwards until the whole body is rigid and stiff on the
floor.

• Then, relax them again and get back into a standing position.

• Give the arms and legs a good shake to remove any remaining
stiffness.

56
 MOVEMENT WITH MUSCLE TENSION

• Try moving around the space using as few muscles and as little
energy as possible.

• Gradually increase the tension of the body and the energy,

which will increase the pace of the movement, until your muscles
are so tense that you are unable to move.

TENSION STATES

There are seven tension states. Try each one out, moving around
the space:

• Number 1 is the lowest and I equate it with how you might feel
in the morning after a heavy night partying: reluctant to move
but if you MUST move, then it will be with the minimum effort,
slouching, heavy.

• Number 2 I call Mr Cool. Too much effort would not look cool,
so the muscles are still pretty relaxed.

• Number 3 is 'Normal.' It is as neutral as possible. Some people

call this the Stage Manager. SMs move around the stage as
invisibly as possible, not wanting to attract attention to
themselves.

57
• Number 4 is often called the Director. The Director is fussing
about things, a perfectionist. He wants everything just so: the
table moved three centimetres to the right, the chair one
centimetre to the left.

• Number 5 is the Optimist: sunny, happy and full of the joys of

spring. Everything he sees around him is a fresh source of
delight. His body is full of energy, rushing to and fro
appreciating all things.

• Number 6 is the Pessimist. The sky is going to fall on our heads.

The world WILL end – what was that sound? It's beginning! The
end of the world! For this tension state, it must be clear that this
is the last state in which movement is possible. The muscles are
as tense as they can be without locking. The state is one of total
panic.

• Number 7 is Deadlock. All the muscles have engaged so that

movement is not possible. It is the kind of state you might be in
if there was a mad axe-man just behind the door you were
crammed against. Even breathing might give you away…

Moving through the tension states can suggest all sorts of

characters as well as situations. It is a useful tool to know and can
often be used when applied to a situation which appears not to be
going anywhere. Then it can inject new life into the scenario and the
characters.

58
 A MINI DEVISED PIECE

• In the last couple of sessions, you have experienced a number

of ways of accessing characters and explored some of them. In
groups of three or four, take a mix of characters and allocate to
each group a variety of props, costume pieces or pieces of
setting.

Suggestions of props:

• Mobile phone
• Whistle
• Walking stick or crutch
• Sack
• Pair of sunglasses
• Handbag
• Dustbin
• Rug
• Photograph
• Newspaper
• Cuddly toy
• Doll
• Musical instrument
• Length of thick rope
• Length of thinner rope
• Hollow box.

59
Suggestions of costume accessories:

• A variety of different hats.

• A variety of different shoes and boots, scarves, pieces of
random lengths of material which can be used in a number
of ways.

Suggestions of pieces of setting:

• Chair
• Stepladder
• Raised rostrum
• Step or group of steps (usually used to access a higher
rostrum)
• Screen
• Standing spotlight
• Number of bamboo canes.

• Make sure that each group has at least one item from each of
the above lists. These things are extra ingredients, to add to the
mix of potential characters they have already experienced.
They can, of course, use characters or situations that have
interested them from any of the previous sessions.

• Before they begin, remind them of the need to let their

imaginations fly. Any of the objects, costumes, props they have
been allocated can become other than what they seem to be.

• A sack or a hollow box can be an entrance into Hades; a piece

of material a river; the top of a stepladder the clouds or Heaven;
a hat a crown; a rope a flimsy bridge over an abyss; while a
bunch of canes can be used to make and unmake a number of
environments: the outlines of ships, a bench to sit on, a forest...

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 • The key is always belief. Use an object or prop with the belief
that it is what you want it to be and you will carry the audience
with you.

This is the final exercise of these six sessions.

• They can choose characters they have accessed in a previous

session or other characters suggested by the costume or prop
accessories. Since the props and other items are all doled out
by the teacher, NOT chosen by the group, it is up to them to let
their imaginations fly and use everything they have to see if
they can come up with a short scene that uses these objects
and test the ideas they have picked up from previous sessions.

• Make sure there is time to show the results. Don't worry that
they will be short. In the time allocated, they cannot be anything
but. Something will emerge. A seed, perhaps; the germ of an
idea. This needs to be encouraged, by the rest of the group
watching as well as by yourself.

FINAL EVALUATION

The time you have for this exercise will depend on the size of your class.
With a smaller number of groups, there is room for more discussion and
evaluation. But at the very least, make sure that through their evaluation
they can:

a) Recognise the germ of a good idea that has room for expansion.

b) Recognise when a dialogue or scene has run out of steam, when

it needs an injection of new life, the bringing in of a new character
perhaps, or an alteration in viewpoint – some kind of surprise.

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If your class can manage this, then they have learned some important
lessons about creating a devised piece and, if you have gone through these
six sessions, they will also have a variety of different tools to apply.

RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS

There are a number of other interviews available on Digital Theatre+.

• An interview with Nancy Meckler of Shared Experience stresses the

need for physical rather than verbal starting points. Shared
Experience as a company seek to adapt novels for the stage.

• An interview with Matt Adams of Blast Theory describes how his

unusual company focuses on audience and gives them, in a variety
of extraordinary ways, a location-based experience.

• An interview with Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment will give

any student an idea of a company that began with cinema, TV and
cabaret – anything that is not 'proper' theatre – and formed its own
unique idea of a different kind of theatrical experience.

• Other resources that can help you, apart from the ones suggested at
the end of each of the six sessions, include Devising Skills and
Exploring Physical Theatre, both by DramaWorks.

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