Last week was a busy week for the Secondary Performing Arts, with Year 7, 9, and 10 Theatre performances!
Year 7 Theatre: Shakespeare Shorts readers theatre productions7I “Romeo + Juliet” (Monday) and 7S “Richard the Third” (Wednesday)
Through the “Scripted Drama” unit, working on the conceptual question “How do I transform my face, voice, body, and posture using performance skills from both scripted and improvised Drama?”, the Year 7 Theatre students have explored the different ways to improve their creative processes through improvisation. For these most recent performances, they learned the structures and practices to help perform their roles in a Scripted Drama play. This assignment was to engage the students in performing a scripted performance to showcase their talents as actors and improve their ability to perform to the public using strong vocal projection, good mime and effective storytelling, and transforming into different characters wherever possible using aspects of melodrama.
Why the plays of William Shakespeare you might ask? We remember Shakespeare today because he wrote plays that continue to mean a lot to us. Over 400 years later, plays like “Hamlet” “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” are still performed everywhere because people like to hear the ideas and words that Shakespeare wrote, and because he told stories about the feelings that people have always had.
Year 9 Theatre: “The Festivities” – Anton ChekhovYear 9 Theatre students chose a play from the canon to workshop and perform last Tuesday in the Primary Lecture Theatre.Thinking about “how do plays present a strong central idea or theme (from a specific time or place) that must be effectively transformed through design, acting, and direction?”; the students choose a farce about a bank – “The Festivities” by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.The students needed to interpret, shape, select, structure, and show insight into their role as actor, as well as needing to work with a director on their roles. Notes taken and scripts annotated stand as evidence in their Arts Process Journals towards their interpretation, shaping, selection of their ideas and insight. They also had to perform with flair (confidence and control) and show good awareness, understanding and control of the style of play. Year 9 Theatre students are consistently engaging with their audience. Therefore, use of strong voice and body and posture to keep their audience engaged with them were further vital components of their performance.
Year 10 Theatre: Musical Theatre Mash-UpAfter weeks of official MYP assessment, with ePortfolio tasks, Personal Projects, and eAssessments, the Year 10 Theatre students have dipped their dancing feet into the unbridled joy of a musical theatre mash up unit!The students have explored the genre and structure of a Broadway Musical Theatre piece and then creatively changed it into a modern “mash-up” form by using a modern song, as they composed, presented, and expressed themselves in an original piece of musical theatre in the sixth-floor Theatre black box last Friday.The aim was to develop in students a sense of responsibility for their own learning and for increasing their knowledge of theatre styles and genres. This assignment is to engage students in performing a musical theatre mash up to showcase their talents as musicians, singers, and actors (the “triple threat”) and improve their ability to perform to the public using strong vocal projection, good body awareness, and effective musicianship.We saw two groups perform: “Rewrite the Stars” (The Greatest Showman) + “Counting Stars” (Imagine Dragons) and “Defying Gravity” (Wicked) + Power (Kanye West). An extraordinary way to end another busy week at UISG, with a happy audience of classmates and teachers leaving the performance space humming the tunes.
These performances mark the end of the 2023-2024 Theatre performance season. See you all in September for the start of a new academic years’ worth of productions and performances!
Ms. Jennifer Lazareck
Secondary Performing Arts: MYP + DP Theatre
Mr. Malcolm Mawhinney
Head of Performing Arts (K-12)
Secondary Performing Arts: DP & MYP Music / MYP Theatre
