WJEC/Eduqas GCSE Drama: Revision Guide

AO 2 AO 1 GAMES FOR DEVISING These games will help you to explore the skills of devising drama. You will come up with lines and use your body and voice to illustrate emotions and ideas. Work together as a group, accepting the ideas of others and offering your own. A quick-fire game to get ideas and imagination warmed up. 1 This can be done with any object, for example a pencil. 2 The director (either your teacher or one member of your group) holds up the pencil and asks everyone to observe it closely. 3 Then, the director asks every member of the group, quickly and urgently, ‘What’s this?’ 4 Each member of the group must say something true about the object, for example ‘It’s pink’, ‘It’s got an eraser on the end’, ‘It’s got a sharp point’. 5 Next, when the director asks ‘What’s this?’ each member of the group must instantly reply with a lie. You can say anything, so long as it is not true, for example ‘It’s a flamingo!’, ‘It’s a jet engine!’, ‘It’s brown!’ This game is all about spontaneity – any hesitation and you are out. How does this help me to devise? This game stops you from overthinking and gets you in the habit of responding authentically and with confidence onstage. 1 “What’s this?” A great warm-up for Physical Theatre and voice work. 1 Form a circle. One person in the group is the director. Begin by throwing a mimed ball around the circle. 2 When the ball gets back to the director, they will ask you to throw something disgusting at the imaginary ball in their hands. You can mime flicking snot, throwing dog poo, whatever you can think of! 3 With every bit of snot/slime/dog poo that lands, the mimed ball gets bigger and smellier. You can’t drop it. You have to catch it from the person on one side of you and throw it to the person on the other side and you can’t talk – all you can say is ‘Uuurrrgh!’ or ‘Yuck!’ How does this help me to devise? It makes sure that your body, voice and emotions are working together. It helps you to convey emotions, gestures and tones of voice, so you can ‘show, not tell’ your audience what your character is feeling and what your scene is about. Because the Yuck ball is invisible, you can only keep its reality for the audience by eye contact and observation – keeping it the same shape, etc. as when it was thrown. 2 “Yuck ball” Draw an image or describe an idea that came up in one of these games that you could use or develop in your group scene. FOR YOUR PORTFOLIO This game uses Stanislavski’s techniques of observation and spontaneity. TIP DOWNLOADABLE 19 CHAPTER 1 chapter 1 DEVISING