The Response Phase - How a class responded to the words - Fatal Shore

The Response Phase Fatal Shore The play of 'The Fatal Shore' was introduced to us with just the word put up onto an overhead projector. The class brainstormed their ideas of what they thought this meant, people came up with words such as death, sea, and sand, this was effective as it brought our imaginations into the work and everybody got a chance to listen to other people and adapt on their own ideas. When we had all thought up our ideas we were told what 'Fatal Shore' was actually all about, that it was brought about in Georgian England and that criminals were transported to spend the duration of their punishment away from England. We were given an example of a man, aged 20 years, who had stolen a silk bonnet and other goods, for this, his sentence was either hanging or transportation for 7 years. This was shocking to the class and it stuck in our minds, one pupil said that they couldn't believe they got sent away, for so long, for committing such minor crimes. We then got into small groups and each one was given a title to look at. The titles were: - Punishment, The Loneliness of Man, The voyage and Fatal shore. With these we had to use imagery, and interpret what we thought the title meant in a few still images. This was effective because we all worked well as groups and it gave us a better understanding of what went on, on the ship. We used a warm up exercise called

  • Word count: 1145
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Drama Sparkleshark

Sparkle Shark Coursework Amy Hudson In drama, we have recently been looking at a contemporary piece of youth theatre, Sparkleshark, by Philip Ridley. Sparkleshark is set on the junk-strewn roof of an inner-city tower block. This is the secret hideaway of Jake (14), where he goes to work on his stories. He's interrupted by Polly (14), who's more impressed by his stories than his rudeness, then by the trendily-dressed Natasha (15) and Carol (14) who copies everything Natasha does and wears; finally, to his terror, up come his tormentors, the self-obsessed Russell (15) 'the love muscle', his cohorts Buzz and Speed (both 14) and Shane (16), who they all regard with awe now he's left school for the outside world. Tough, trendy, heartless, they all think they know who they are, or need to be to survive. But they're in for the biggest surprise of their lives. When the girls try to protect Jake from the boys, he can only truly save himself and his dignity by weaving his best story yet; and this life- saver is so good that, despite themselves, they all not only want big parts in the roof-top enactment of its perils and mysteries, its trials and love quests, and its meetings with the Dragon Sparkleshark (played by Finn, 15) but will also find that they have formed new, unbelievable friendships and enjoyed the one thing they had been bullying people for. My first

  • Word count: 6218
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Our performance was a socio-political play as we explored the social and legal implications of taking a foster child away from the home that she grew up in and giving her back to her biological mother at the mothers requests

Section A - Genre, Style and Convention Demi Pink Our performance was a socio-political play as we explored the social and legal implications of taking a foster child away from the home that she grew up in and giving her back to her biological mother at the mother's requests without taking her requests and views on the situation into account. Socio-political plays discuss and delve into issues in society which can have social and political effects in the society which we live in. The genre forces people to question what they think about certain subjects and can make them re-think their ideas on certain subjects concerning society. Our performance is not naturalistic as we felt that by creating extreme characters the audience would be more likely to empathise and relate with aspects of their personality such as Moth's sullenness, Chloe's immaturity and Carol's kindness. By creating these big characters they are thrust upon the audience and so the audience can't ignore what they're saying even if it makes them uncomfortable. We also chose not to perform in a naturalistic style as our plot spans over a larger period of time and in two separate houses and so we felt that the best way to do this without running the flow of the performance or distracting the audience would be too use two tables in order to represent the separate houses. Whilst creating and devising our

  • Word count: 766
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Live like pigs and refugees drama comparison

Live like pigs and Refugees drama comparison Live like pigs has the same background as the devised refugee piece because both pieces are to do with moving to different places and also changing themselves. There home is also pretty much the same to as in the live like pigs piece they live in a condemned broken tramcar on a caravan site which is not a practical place to live, and in the refugees piece they have to move to a place with conditions like the place in live like pigs. The language of the live like pigs piece is like there from up north because the word summit is used quite a lot, which actually means something and also they use the word mister and misses spelt differently, but in the refugees piece it was mostly our own voices with some accents but not really old English. The techniques used in live like pigs are the same as refugees because they both have the same sort of storyline and plot so therefore they have the same techniques such as because the characters are quite alike in both pieces. The type of play refugees is quite sad and mysterious because of the different music and lights being played and also the way of the acting such as facial expressions. In live like pigs the play is quite convincing because of the different types of languages used and the way it is laid out. . The setting is also important to the genre such as different colours, textual

  • Word count: 596
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Character Assessment

Character Assessment We are currently studying 'The Crucible' wrote by Arthur Miller. This is based in the 17th Century. In 1697. It is based around true events. On the Salem Witch Hunts this was known as McCarthyism (Witch Hunts) The play is about accusation, lying. And affair. And a number of key characters. Ranging from the usually strong, proud character Proctor. To the deceiving young Abigail. And Revarand Paris a distressed priest in worry over his sick daughter. I will cover a short extract and explain how I believe John Proctor should be played during a chosen scene. At pages 27-30. First I would give tall, Strong gestures. He should be portrayed as a strong character. With definite grasp on most situations. I base this on the fact that in the text he is referred to as a kind man. And on pg27 it refers to proctor as a kind of fraud. But then immediately states that none of this had come to the surface. He is also very well respected within the village because of his ' sharp and biting way with hypocrites' it says on pg27. Because of this I would expect others to feel slightly honored while around him. And be eager to make good impressions with his reputation. Although his typical posture would be tall and proud. In pages 27-30. It is somewhat different. Due to his relationship with Abigail. I would show this fact by making him look more troubled and threatened. I

  • Word count: 643
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Monologue in Jessica

Topics: "Brought back to life after 100 years, how does your character respond to the way society has progressed and it's response to them now in comparison to before?" By_ Peter Lee My character: George Thomas It makes me so angry that people don't recognise that I am a powerful man! I have money, status, but those stupid people don't know who I am. When I used to dine at luxury restaurants, department store, hotels and other famous places, I was recognised as George Thomas usually, have people give me top service. That's a now a problem of course. Now people expect me to sit with filth. When I complain to the manager about the pitiful service and behaviour of the bloody waiters or waitresses, they look at me like I am some fool! It's only after my constant demands that they finally take me to fitting accommodation. Why must I have to ask, can they not see from my stature, do they not know the Thomas name? Why do these things happen to me? I used to buy expensive things from the stores, the community knew, that was a common practice for me but these people, They make comment about how those things are expensive. Who cares about the price of the things? Only, poor filthy animals like them care about it because they don't have much money like me. I look at them with contempt... Oh this restaurant has the most expensive food in the city. It is very delicious to eat.

  • Word count: 805
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Creating an atmosphere for a play.

Creating an Atmosphere Recently we have been doing a play whilst trying to create an atmosphere. The idea behind this unit was to create an atmosphere that was seasonal at this time of year, which is winter. Normally when watching a film, which has a wintry atmosphere it, would be something like a Dracula, Ghost stories, Murder Mysteries etc, so one of these ideas would be ideal for a play, as ancestors & scriptwriters have described to us in films and stories for hundreds of years. Before we got into groups and started the improvisation we did a few warm ups to help. Some of these warm ups helped us to express our emotions more fluently, there was one activity in particular that was particularly odd. In pairs we had to do an improvisation based on a game of chess, however this was no ordinary game of chess, this game of chess was arranged with "Death" the grim reaper himself and an innocent human playing for his/her life in which the grim reaper would then posses. During this improvisation we had show many different emotions contrasting with this event such as fear, stress and nervousness. I used a few small expressions like biting my nails and hesitating whilst taking my turn, which showed the audience that I was careful/cautious. However I wasn't performance wasn't extremely effective in persuading the audience that I was. When we had

  • Word count: 1104
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Creating an Atmosphere

Creating an Atmosphere Recently we have been doing a play whilst trying to create an atmosphere. The idea behind this unit was to create an atmosphere that was seasonal at this time of year, which is winter. Normally when watching a film, which has a wintry atmosphere it, would be something like a Dracula, Ghost stories, Murder Mysteries etc, so one of these ideas would be ideal for a play, as ancestors & scriptwriters have described to us in films and stories for hundreds of years. Before we got into groups and started the improvisation we did a few warm ups to help. Some of these warm ups helped us to express our emotions more fluently, there was one activity in particular that was particularly odd. In pairs we had to do an improvisation based on a game of chess, however this was no ordinary game of chess, this game of chess was arranged with "Death" the grim reaper himself and an innocent human playing for his/her life in which the grim reaper would then posses. During this improvisation we had show many different emotions contrasting with this event such as fear, stress and nervousness. I used a few small expressions like biting my nails and hesitating whilst taking my turn, which showed the audience that I was careful/cautious. However I wasn't performance wasn't extremely effective in persuading the audience that I was. When we had

  • Word count: 1104
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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The examination is on clowning so we had many lessons exploring clowning techniques.

Clown Portfolio This is my account of how my group and I developed our play for our examination. The examination is on clowning so we had many lessons exploring clowning techniques. To master clowning we had to let go of our fear of looking bad. Being teenagers many of us including me found this extremely hard. We didn't have the trust in our fellow students to be sure they wouldn't go and laugh about us outside of the lesson with their group of friends. With this fear in place our work came across as a piece of realism. Once we all had banished this fear we could become clowns. Because we were taught the art of clowning was exaggerating everything to its utmost till it became grotesque. Of course doing this was going to make us look strange and abstract, which was exactly what clowning is about but my response to this as I've already said was to be afraid of looking bad. Once we all realised we were all on the same road trip we were suddenly aware we were all able to play good clowns and all we needed to do was get the training to be clowns. So our first clowning exercise was miming a conversation with over the top body movement. I very soon came to my next obstacle I was funny but not because of my attempted clowning technique but because I looked like an Eastender character on TV where someone had muted the television. Basically I was not exaggerating enough. Our class

  • Word count: 1167
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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Comparision of dicvised peice and another sun

Comparing "Another Sun" (live theatre) to my devised piece (Alone on earth?) I have just completed a piece of drama practical called "Alone on Earth?" for part of my drama G.c.s.e. In this essay I intend to compare the similarities and differences between my devised piece and a live performance called "Another sun" Another sun is about 3 people. Albert Einstein, Marie curie and Robert Oppenheim; and how they were trying to warn the world about the effects of the atomic bomb. They do this by telling the audience the story of their lives, and the effect that the bomb had on Hiroshima. Our devised piece was about how 5 people were the only survivors left on earth after a nuclear holocaust and we intended to show the audience our relationships with one another, and what we were willing to do in order to survive. We did this by using various flashbacks and confusing the audience. My first similarity between the two plays was the simple sets that they used. In "Another Sun" there were lots of staging blocks because it was a piece of physical theatre, and the actors used this to move around elegantly. It was very simple but very effective. Similarly our devised piece "Alone on earth?" used only one staging block to put the props on. Not only this, but it was used in the background to create a sense on unease on the audience. "Another sun" highlights the social arguments

  • Word count: 605
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Drama
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