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Students will plot the steps of the story mountain by using existing monologues.

Students will review their blocking choices with a specific objective of making every action in the scene purposeful and theatrical.

Students will continue working on staging techniques by exploring character physicality.

Students will perform their monologues in front of the class and reflect on the process.

In this class, they are going to present their scenes in front of multiple groups and receive their feedback. They will then review their feedback and decide on what changes they’ll make to their scenes.

There are a whole host of careers in the theatre that aren’t acting. Students will discover and explore different jobs in the theatrical world, including experience needed, responsibilities, and possible salaries. Students will research an existing theatre professional and complete a written profile that demonstrates their knowledge.

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

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

This lesson will focus on the materials needed to create various physical wounds using stage makeup. Students will interact with specialized makeup materials such as latex, nose and scar wax, and stage blood in order to become familiar with the materials and gain a basic understanding of how to utilize the materials in the execution of a stage-makeup design.

Drama skills, particularly those learned while studying acting, are used in everyday life. Drama skills are transferable skills that are used in everyday life, particularly in the working world. In this lesson, we will look at a few of them, and then students will improvise real-world situations that apply those skills.

To research in order to expand knowledge of how theatre is used in the real world. Students will research an existing theatre company and complete a project that demonstrates their knowledge (be it a written response, slide deck presentation, or a physical display board/presentation).

This lesson plan works as a great complement to the DTA Research Lesson Plan: Theatre Company Profile. In that lesson, students are introduced to various theatre companies, all with unique histories, facilities, and artistic goals. It’s a natural next step to have students create their own theatre companies, specifically tailored to their unique interests and personalities.

Students will be introduced to the unit through the running man exercise. This exercise demonstrates how physically committing to a specific set of actions creates a sense of emotion without the actor having to play the emotion.

Students will learn how to identify the architecture of a mask—that is to choose specific shapes that they can mimic in their bodies to find a mask character.

This lesson will focus on creating zombie characters with stage makeup. Students will work in small groups to create the background stories for the “zombification” of their characters and design the zombie makeup of that character. Students will then execute their makeup designs on a group member using stage makeup.

This lesson will focus on creating scars, scrapes, and cuts with stage makeup. Students will reflect on what causes these wounds and will then create a scar, scrape, or cut on a partner using stage makeup.

Short, simple scenes help the mask actors find character and start responding to each other in the moment as their characters. Students will explore solo, duo, and group scenes in their mask characters.

In this lesson, students will learn what a character zero is, how to use the body to create a character zero, how to physically commit to that body before moving, and how to make bigger choices in their character zero and in their movement.

Students will take everything they’ve learned and use it to create an original mask duo scene.

All masks can be played in more than one way, even if there’s a dominant look. In this lesson, students will explore how two physical interpretations paired with each other and opposite to each other become the mask and the countermask—the opposite reaction. They will then apply the qualities of movement to their mask/countermask.