Florida Sunshine State Standards
Critical Thinking & Reflection

Concept-Based Design is a method of design that allows the director and production team to create a unified world based on the ideas, perceptions and images extracted from an in-depth analysis of the play. Matt Webster designed this course for theatre teachers in a typical school setting with limited budgets, space and materials to use towards the design of their shows. Many theatre teachers feel most unsure about their design and tech skills and Matt wanted to help those teachers look at design differently, and make designing a show a little less scary and a little more fun!

Instructor Joshua Hatt has taught drama students all over the world. He is passionate about the power of drama to connect people and the importance of reflection and journaling to build creative, critical thinkers. He started using Google Drive as a response to the frustration of having his students lose curriculum booklets time and time again. His work developed into a powerful online home whereby students and teachers can communicate, contribute, collaborate, edit, and house all their documents online. In this course, Josh will show you how to use Google Drive and Slides in your drama classroom. He's included step-by-step guided instruction, as well as activities to help you solidify your knowledge. Your drama classroom will be forever transformed!

Holly Beardsley is a do-it-all director. She started directing middle and high school students in her early college years and since then has written over ten shows and directed twice as many. Do-it-all directors are responsible for everything it seems – the direction, the costuming, the choreography and of course, the set too. And though directors are ready to direct, to costume and even dance, there is something intimidating about designing and building a set. The Do-it-All Director’s Introduction to Set Design will give you the director, who must do-it-all, the confidence and skills to not only direct but build your own set as well - no matter your experience or budget. This course will teach you set design basics, construction tips, budget tricks, and how to tackle your precious performance space armed with a hammer, and most importantly, without fear.

Allison Williams leads the course: 21st Century Skills Through Devising. This course covers what devising is, why to do it, how to do it, and how your students can master the 21st Century Skills of collaborations and cooperation, critical thinking, creative thinking through devising. High school is a great place to try devising with your students. But it’s not something you want to throw at your students without any preparation. Framework is important and this course takes you through a number of exercises you can take into the classroom tomorrow to help build a place of physical safety, a place where students work at making a lot of choices instead of waiting for the perfect choice, and a place where students feel comfortable making creative choices. The material also reviews the process of putting together a show from the idea/research stage to editing, to giving feedback. Your students have what it takes to create their own material, collaborate with each other, and have a unique theatrical experience!

Screenwriter Nick Pappas leads a two-part course on screenplays 101. Great scriptwriting is not something that can be covered in a single course: so we're going to start with the basics. Those basics are going to be split up into a Part 1 and a Part 2. Part 1, this course, will concentrate on basic film structure. Part 2 will concentrate on screenplay formatting. By the end of this course, students should have a basic understanding of history, terminology, and are able to identify the barest bones of the three-act structure, all with an eye toward developing their own screenplay.

This course is a Part 2. In a Screenplays 101 course, screenwriter Nick Pappas covers both Structure and Formatting. Here in Part 2 we'll cover Basic Formatting. If you have not already watched Screenplays 101 – Part 1: Basic Structure, I highly recommend you go back and do so now. Having that knowledge under your belt will help you navigate Part 2 of this course. The goal is that, by the end of this course, your students have a basic understanding of how a screenplay is formatted and why it is formatted that way, all with an eye toward developing their own screenplay.