Extra-curricular activities

Creating a piece of educative theatre to perform to younger pupils in order to illuminate a concept.

This lesson took place after school, when a group of pupils, of mixed age and talent, worked with their teacher to prepare a play to take to a local infant school. The infant school was interested in environmental issues to do with rubbish and graffiti. The extra-curricular group visited the school to meet briefly the children and staff. They established the nature of both the audience and performing space. Making use of the different talents of the group, they quickly devised an allegorical play based on a story line about 'green issues', and rehearsed their play. This was recorded on video during the devising process and improvements made. After several weeks of rehearsal, the piece was 'toured' to the infant school as part of an assembly. The teacher had placed a number of constraints on the group. Limits were set on the length of performance, the availability of props and the size of the performing space; set and lighting had to be created within a very limited budget. There was also the requirement that there should be music or sound effects to enhance the performance.