Drama Biog Blog

Ok, Hopefully this has finally worked!( If there are several half drafts attached to it, my apologies.)

Well, basically I fell into drama by a series of chance. On a visit to Adelaide my mother sent off an application for a drama school and auditioned and happened to get in and as a result stayed in Adelaide for 3yrs  while I completed the course. I fell in love with my voice teacher, a brilliant actress and teacher called Cath Carter who was our Shakespeare / Voice teacher and as a result fell in love with the way we worked with all our Shakespeare work. Cath had trained in the states with Shakesperae and Co and i had decided to do the same and become a voice teacher, so after graduation I went on to do a mentorship with Cath and started getting ready to go overseas. Last minute I kinda changed my mind and decided to go instead to David mamets ‘Atlantic theatre company school’ so I moved over to new york for awhile and trained.

Comong back to Australia was great, I felt competent and positive and worked for awhile as an actor and a drama teacher and then I started to have a mini meltdown and stopped doing any acting or even auditioning. At the moment I am trying to break out of this and get back into it with baby steps. But whilst I wait for abit of inspiration I decided to study teaching so atleast I can remain in the general field .  Its definetly a different perspective to look at drama from and i am suprised that Im still finding the course as interesting as I do.

Well well. thanks for reading.

Cheerio Xn

“The staffroom by Steve Wheat

…
the staffroom is a play about the teachers in an inner suburban secondary school staffroom – their trials and tribulations throughout the school year.

Simon has just completed his Bachelor of Education. Armed with a satchel of pristine lesson plans he steps into his new life as a secondary school teacher.

As he opens the door to the staffroom he discovers a sacred refuge where teachers – freed of the restraints of instruction, discipline and, importantly, students – outpour their exasperations and frustrations in extraordinary ways. Simon soon realizes that it’s not the students he needs to worry about.

From the creators of The Write OneDotComn – “a comic highlight” Herald Sun
ManWomanSexRevenge – “electrifying, funny, pure enjoyment” The Age
Cloudburst – “funny, titillating,terrific” Herald Sun

Directed by Beng Oh

Venue: Cromwell Road Theatre, 27a Cromwell Road, South Yarra
Dates: 8th to 31st March, 2007
Times: Wednesdays to Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 6pm
Tickets: $20.00 adult & $15.00 conc/group (8+)
Bookings: (03) 9517 7302 or at the door
Visit: www.grainfedtheatre.org.au

These are a couple of Voice and Speech exercises that I remember doing in drama at school, that can be used to experiment with voice.

1. Air whispers through the trees (students say this line softly, almost whispering)

Steam hisses in a kettle (slightly louder)

Water crashes from the seas

And fire melts metal (scream)

(The volume of each line gradually gets louder, but the students still need to pronounce every word clearly).

2. I can make my voice climb higher and higher..

3. I can make my voice go lower and lower…

4. In the drawing room Lady Penelope languidly sipped a long, cool glass of lemonade while listening to the dulcet tones of the flute played by her companion. (Pitch, pace, volume, tone, articulation)

5. Tongue twisters-

Red leather, yellow leather; red leather, yellow leather

Black bugs blood

You lose too many shoes

Alone at home

A wicked cricket critic

From Thalia

..Began whilst being brought up mainly by my maternal Grandparents. Both coming from diverse ancestral backgrounds, I came to develop a great appreciation for our family and for values held in high regard at the time of my Grandparent’s upbringing in pre-war Europe. My time with Grandma and Grandad took place in many and varied locations ranging from Australia to the UK, central Europe and East Africa (the latter, where Grandad had been posted by the British government).

I should probably mention that, as an only child, I spent almost all of my non-school time in the company of people 60 years older than me, meaning that the traditional aspects of childhood imagination and creativity were spent alone. But when one is with energetic imagination, one is never quite alone. In addition, whenever Grandma and Grandad weren’t around, sometimes substitution was required (generally a strong female character - like Grandma).

During our time together, I gained a great appreciation for the talents of many ‘great’ actors and actresses such as Sir John Gielgud, Sir John Mills, Lord Olivier, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Joan Plowright, Dame Judi Dench etc I think you all get the idea. So here we have examples of the kind of talent I shall strive for the rest of my life to try and equal. (Impossible I know, but it gives me an aim).

The other two primary influences were spending time at the local theatre, owned and run by my two great uncles and then ofcourse, there was my secondary school.

I attended a secondary school (the primary school of which I had also attended for the previous three years), with a great emphasis toward the arts. Being a little performer with an affinity with older people, I had every intention of making the best possible use of the facilities on offer, both theatrical and musical.
And so taking part in all plays (straight and musical), available to me was the key to me deciding that as an actor waiting for work as I would no doubt be, teaching with passion and excitement, the performing arts that had brought me so much pleasure, development and understanding seemed the only path to take.

You will need a smallish piece of material for this game (Or some object that has no meaning that can be changed to represent any object [or person or animal]…. I have found that a piece of material works best, however you might think of something better…)

 Each student takes in turn to think about what object they can turn the piece of material into and then they proceed to act out a short piece whilst the rest of the class is to guess what the piece of material represents. 

Eg: student wraps the piece of material into a oblong type shape and cradles it in their arms whilst coo-ing or singing baby songs.

To make this game just a little bit harder, ask the students to act out the piece with no spoken words.

Well that’s one of my games….. 

Melanie

Here’s my effort:

Moody Gesture

Students take turns presenting a gesture or emotion (whether they volunteer for the group or take turns is optional). The rest of the class has to guess what they are trying to gesture. When people get it right they need to indicate what it was in the gesutre that made them think that - the hand movements, facial expression, focus, etc. If the class doesn’t guess correctly the player describes what they were trying to do and what they were trying to use to do it. For example…

Appalled - looking shoked, shaking head in disappointment

Baffled/bemused - hands up with shrugging shoulders, eyebrows up, looking down, running hands throguh hair

Choking - handsat throat, tongue sticking out, pointing at back

Dizzy - hand p to steady, wide eyes, serious expression

Exasperated…

~~~~~~
Alison

Hi. This is Jo. Thanks to Alison who put in the last post about posting up ideas for dramatic elements.

Here’s a simple one off the top of my head to get the ball rolling.
Music (Sound) and Mood

Ask students to form a small group (3-4) and develop a simple scene - one that can be performed in about a minute and involves some simple interactions between characters - no dialogue is necessary. Have them perform their scene in a neutral way in silence. Introduce some different kinds of background music (eg: scarey, romantic, lighthearted, funky…). have the students perform the scenes to the different kinds of music.Questions for reflection:

• How does the music effect the way the scene is played by the performers?
• How does it effect the scene for the audience?
• Think about the ways music is used to enhance mood in theatre, film and TV productions.
• How can silence also create mood?

See the Categories group to the right? All our posts, so far, are Uncategorised.

When you post your ‘activity or idea about a dramatic element’ tick the relevent dramatic element in the Categories section which will appear in the right of your Write Post page - it looks like this:

You can add more elements if you need to.

Okay well I guess it all began when i was little. Having two older brothers it sometimes meant that they thought they were to cool to hang out with me, so it was basically up to my imagination to keep myself amused at home. I could make games out of anything, and I did constantly (okay perhaps I still do.) So that would have to be my introduction into the world of drama.

Primary school days were spent in calisthenics classes and I loved it. The costumes, the make up, being on stage and having everyone clapping, it was all pretty cool. But tragically I really injured my hip when I was in grade 5 due to calisthenics and I had to stop.
After I stopped, I stopped. Being from a small country town my high school didn’t offer drama as a subject, but through English I was able to experience a tiny piece of the action, through writing and performing plays, mock T.V shows and public speaking. VCE swung around and for some reason I assumed I would be great at chemisty, biology and maths… to cut a long story short I wasn’t, so in regard to school work I struggled a bit. Finally our school decided to put on a performing arts show, asking students to create something to perform if they were interested. Well I was, so I roped all of my friends into making up a dance to the Moulin Rouge and it was so much fun. Watching the video now is a little embarrassing but it was just a trigger that made me want to start doing something again.

So VTAC places came out, I got accepted into Arts at LaTrobe and dying as I was to move to Melbourne I jumped at the chance. But it sucked. Out of the four subjects I chose drama/theatre was the only one that was worth going to, but that being said I didn’t like being taught how to ‘act’ so I decided to defer the course and check out my options.
A few months later I applyed for and got accepted into VUT Performance studies and the following three years was the best. VUT was such a brilliant place. We were always encouraged to follow our interests, create our own work (not ever relying on other peoples words), learn to work with no budget and to find our passion. I don’t want to go on and on but the teachers we had over our three years were incredible, but I think the most influential teacher’s I had were Maggie Cameron and Mary Anne Lynch. Maggie helped me crawl out of six months of writers block and it was because of her that I finished the degree, and Mary Anne mad me realise that I had to trust myself and follow my instincts and that it is okay to fail.
After completing the degree I walked away wanting to be a writer, a dancer and a performance maker, my confidence had grown and I had developed a strong friendship base with the guys at uni.

Four months later I worked with two close friends from uni on a show which we went on to perform at the Woodbin Theatre in Geelong called “even for a girl like me…”. This was such a brilliant experience as I was working in a trusting honest environment and it resulted in a successful piece both artistically and financially (in other words we made some money!)

Shortly after this I tried out for a part in a play for the Melbourne Comedy Festival, read for it and got it. This was a spin out as I had never acted before, and the rehearsals proved to be so so hard. I couldn’t handle having to read a script because I was so worried that I wouldn’t do the words justice, but once I realised that it was okay to play it was all okay. Our show went on to have a sell out three week season and be nominated for a Barry award which was all pretty cool. The best part of that experience was being on stage and getting laughs from the audience, such an amazing rush!

So I know this is probably boring everyone to tears by now but its almost over. Now being at Deakin I know what and why I am doing this degree. I want to help kids in areas who may not get access to oppotunities to study in the arts study them, cause I know what it’s like. When you think about it there would be many city, country and rural towns that would be brimming with so much talent. The worrying things is that the students themselves may never realise this if they don’t get the chance to experience everything and roll with their imagination and most importantly, to understand that it’s such a gift.

Anna

I have little to no memory of Drama activities at primary school -  I think the most drama education we received involved attending a special showing of the local high schools play. My mother decided after some deliberation to send me to gymnastics (instead of a Helen O’grady class). Apparently I had heaps of energy to burn and I was always putting on dance/singing shows for my family.

In year 7 I found the joy of musical theatre. I was involved in the School Production of ‘Pirates of Penzance’. This was not during school hours. We rehearsed after school on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s from 4-6 (maybe 6:30) and on Sunday’s closer to the show date! I was in the chorus and I loved it! This event lead to many other plays including:

-          The Pyjama Game (my first line)

-          Trial by Jury (my first real ‘role’)

-          Pirates of Penzance (again this time as the leading female)

-          The Three Musketeers

-          Footrot Flats

Of all of these performances only 1 was rehearsed during school hours!

For me ‘Pirates’ was an impacting point – as it was my first every musical and later on my first ever leading role.

In high school I was blessed with excellent and passionate drama teachers. And I think that part of the reason why I want to be a drama  teacher is because I have seen their passion and want to share that with future generations.

I have always enjoyed teaching (dance, swimming, anything) yet straight out of highschool I didn’t want to go into a teaching degree, as I didn’t feel ready. So, with the blessing of my family, I chose a course that involved my passion – Performance. 

I have a huge passion for using drama as a tool for teaching individuals with special needs (whether that be a physical or mental disability or simply self esteem concerns). Ideally I would love to have my own business, working with some of these issues both in and out of the school setting.

Year 12 was an interesting time for in my Drama career, there were 5 of us in the class and we were very close. We talked about developing our own company and touring our performances to rural schools (like many of the performances that we had seen). This unfortunately didn’t happen – as many of high school friends go their separate ways. I think that this cemented the notion of teaching drama – or at least sharing the passion for the performing arts.