Structuring Drama Work

Structuring Drama Work is the only drama resource that explores 100 dramatic conventions and techniques and provides ideas for how to practise them. This book explains dramatic conventions and what they do, explores how dramatic techniques can be used, provides cultural connections and global contexts and includes examples of the techniques in the context of plays and texts. The compact size and simple format make this book convenient and easy to use. Suitable for IGCSE® students up to A Level, IB Diploma and beyond, this resource will give inspiration and ideas to students and save teachers valuable planning time by providing numerous examples in a global context.

Grade level: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, e, i, s, t.

Cecily O'Neill has had a formative impact on the evolution of the creative and dynamic mode of teaching called process drama. This book is a compilation of the formative articles of O'Neill along with significant commentaries from leaders in the field.

Process drama is now firmly established, internationally, as a powerful and dynamic pedagogy. This clear and accessible book provides a practical, step-by-step guide to the planning of process drama. Grounded in theory and illustrated in practice, it identifies and explains the principles of planning and shows how they can be applied across age ranges and curricula. Drawing on the authors’ wide-ranging practical experience and research, examples are built up and run throughout the book, at each step showing how and why the teachers’ planning decisions were made. This second edition features: a wider range of examples illustrating the planning principles in practice two completely new chapters: one deals with planning for diverse learner groups and the other moves the reader on from the pre-action planning phase to the ‘planning on your feet’ required as the drama unfolds. incorporated new material to reflect recent understanding of how learning takes place Written as a conversation between reader and authors, Planning Process Drama will help practitioners to update and refine their practice and strengthen their understanding, skills and confidence. Planning Process Drama will be an essential guide for students undertaking initial teacher training at primary level, in addition to both Drama and English at secondary level, and a Masters in Drama in Education. It will also prove to be valuable reading for specialist and non-specialist teacher in both the primary and secondary sectors who teach, or wish to teach, process drama.

In the two decades since the publication of the second edition, Learning Through Theatre has further established itself as an indispensable resource for scholars, practitioners and educators interested in the complex interrelations between teaching and learning, the performing arts, and society at large. Theatre in Education (TIE) has consistently been at the cutting edge of the ever-growing field of Applied Theatre; this comprehensively revised new edition makes an international case for why, and how, it will continue to shape ways in which the participatory arts contribute to the learning of young people (and increasingly, adults) in the 21st century. Drawing on the experiences and insights of theorists and practitioners from across the world, Learning Through Theatre shows how theatre can, and does, promote: participatory engagement; the use of innovative theatrical form; work with young people and adults in a range of educational settings; and social and personal change. Now transatlantically edited by Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine, Learning Through Theatre offers exhilarating new reflections on the book’s original aim: to define, describe and debate the salient features, and wider political context, of one of the most important – and radical – developments in contemporary theatre.

Drama Worlds examines the complex improvised event called process drama and identifies it as an essential part of today's theatre. Cecily O'Neill considers process drama's sources and its connections with more familiar kinds of improvisation: the texts it generates, the kinds of roles available, its relation to its audience and dramatic time, and the leader's function in the event. She provides examples of several process dramas and identifies dramatic strategies and characteristics. The explicit associations between theatre form and process drama make O'Neill's approach accessible and its purposes and possibilities easy to understand, particularly to those working in actor training and theatre. Teachers and directors alike will discover effective ways of initiating and maintaining the drama world, achieving a significant dramatic experience for all participants.

This is a book that looks at how drama has its basis in good early years practice. Most early years practitioners are doing some drama and are edging towards more structured work - this text will help them go further by building their own skills. Using tried and tested example dramas based on traditional stories, the authors show how clearly dramas are constructed. They move from the simple use if TiR (Teacher in Role) to more complex, full dramas, using traditional stories including Little Bo Peep, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Humpty Dumpty, The Pied Piper, The Billy Goats Gruff and Hansel and Gretel. Drama in the early years covers a number of key areas where drama is of particular importance for this age group including: * drama in the National Curriculum * how drama can help your teaching of the Literacy Hour * personal and social education and citizenship * drama and special needs * assessment * recording and progression * developing a school policy for drama.

Into The Woods is a revelation of the fundamental structure and meaning of all stories, from the man responsible for more hours of drama on British television than anyone else, John Yorke. We all love stories. Many of us love to tell them, and even dream of making a living from it too. But what is a story? Hundreds of books about screenwriting and storytelling have been written, but none of them ask 'Why?' Why do we tell stories? And why do all stories function in an eerily similar way? John Yorke has been telling stories almost his entire adult life, and the more he has done it, the more he has asked himself why? Every great thinker or writer has their theories: Aristotle, David Hare, Lajos Egri, Robert McKee, Gustav Freytag, David Mamet, Christopher Booker, Charlie Kaufman, William Goldman and Aaron Sorkin - all have offered insightful and illuminating answers. Here, John Yorke draws on these figures and more as he takes us on a historical, philosophical, scientific and psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling. What he reveals is that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative - one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods, and one, like any great art, that comes from deep within. Much more than a 'how to write' book, Into the Woods is an exploration of this fundamental structure underneath all narrative forms, from film and television to theatre and novel-writing. With astonishing detail and wisdom, John Yorke explains to us a phenomenon that, whether it is as a simple fable, or a big-budget 3D blockbuster, most of us experience almost every day of our lives.