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In this exercise, students will create a short shadow puppetry scene behind a sheet that is backlit.

In this exercise, students are given the opportunity to explore different methods of creating lighting effects using items and resources found around them.

This exercise takes the concept creation ideas explored in a previous exercise and has students notate their lighting plans on a script.

Students create a situation from a picture and examine the given clues to help fill in the gaps. Students then examine the clues in a contentless scene, fill in the gaps, and create their own scenario to perform.

Students will play a drama game and participate in an exercise to explore how conflict affects their active tactics. Students apply conflict to a scene for performance.

Students will participate in a demonstration to explore the rules of virtual staging and performance and why they are important. They will perform a Bad Idea/Good Idea skit for the class to demonstrate their understanding of the concept.

Students will perform and be evaluated on the contentless scene that they have prepared during the unit.

Students review what they have studied in this unit as well as how to give and use constructive feedback. Students will pair up with another scene group, then perform for each other. Students will use the Preview Worksheet to help guide and assess their previews and critiques.

When analyzing a script, you want students to do a close reading, multiple times, and mine the text for as much information as possible. It’s important to know who your character is, why they act the way they do, and, most importantly, how you can physicalize all your newfound knowledge. At the end of each read, students identify possible staging ideas for their character and for the plot.

The sooner students memorize their lines, the more fun they are going to be able to have with the scene. It’s hard to become a character, fully realize blocking, and make the scene one’s own with a script in hand. Acting begins when lines are memorized. This session will focus on practicing a variety of memorization techniques. They will be applied to Section 1 of the scene.

Students will revisit character physicality choices and solidify that they are a part of their staging. Additionally, there are some exercises to further explore character physicality. Encourage students to continue to visualize and practice bringing characters to life as they work on their scene.

Students will solidify blocking notation that can be used in a virtual environment.

Students have been through their scene multiple times with specific blocking choices. They have been working on memorization and character physicality. In their rehearsal today, students will review their blocking choices with a specific objective of making every action in the scene purposeful and theatrical.

Students perform their scene and complete a post-performance reflection.

This is it! The final rehearsal before students perform. Students focus on getting those last few lines word perfect, reflect on where they are, and do final run throughs.

After discussing the essence and quality of their favorite actors, students will record themselves having a conversation. Then they will transcribe their conversation and perform it as a script. These “scenes” will be recorded. Students will then be assigned to describe the “quality” of a fellow student.

Students will view examples of Brownface in film and use critical thinking skills to annotate a text about the issues of Brownface in the film West Side Story. Students will then produce a written reflection on why the use of Brownface in the 1961 film version of West Side story is problematic and offer their opinion on why it perpetuates a negative stereotype of the Latinx community. Includes options for distance learning delivery.

Students will be able to identify some of the major differences between acting for the stage and the camera. They will also be able to understand and use vocabulary that is specific to working on film sets and acting for the camera.

Students will act in and direct a commercial. They will break down a script into shots to “cover” the script. They will also format a script into video and audio. Actors will need to hit marks, make a point concisely, and hit the time format of the commercial. They should use the acting techniques for film as much as possible. Students will also need to think creatively to work in socially distant circumstances.

Students will watch some of a workshop in acting for the camera and do some exercises that help them practice some of the differences between stage acting and film acting.