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VCE Drama (Year 11) · Unit 1 — Performance Styles and Contemporary Drama Practices · 12m read

Creating and Presenting a Devised Performance

Units 1 and 2 ask you to create and present devised performances. This is where you learn the play-making process you will use all the way to Unit 4.

Learning objective: Use a play-making process to create and present a devised performance from stimulus, applying a chosen performance style.

By the end of this lesson you can:

  • I can explore a stimulus to generate ideas.
  • I can shape ideas into a structured performance in a chosen style.
  • I can rehearse and present with clear intention.

Devising is a science experiment. Start with a question (stimulus), test ideas through improvisation, keep what works, and present your findings to an audience.

The play-making process

  • EXPLORE the stimulus — an image, object, poem, song, news story or person.
  • GENERATE ideas with improvisation, tableaux, hot-seating and brainstorming.
  • DECIDE your intention — what should the audience think or feel?
  • CHOOSE a style and conventions that suit the intention.
  • STRUCTURE scenes (linear, episodic, non-linear or cyclical).
  • REHEARSE, get feedback and refine.
  • PRESENT to an audience.
  • REFLECT in your journal.

Worked example (Medium)

Stimulus: an old pair of running shoes. Suggest an intention, a style and a structure.

  1. Ideas. Ambition, ageing, a lost dream, a parent’s sacrifice.
  2. Intention. Make the audience reflect on dreams we give up for others.
  3. Style and structure. Non-naturalistic, non-linear: flashbacks triggered each time the shoes are touched.

Answer: Intention: reflect on sacrificed dreams; style: non-naturalistic with the shoes as a recurring symbol; structure: non-linear flashbacks.

Common mistakes

  • Writing a full script before exploring Devising grows from improvisation. Fix: Improvise first, then select and shape.
  • Not documenting the process Analysis tasks need evidence of decisions. Fix: Keep a dated journal of ideas and changes.

Practice questions

  1. Interviewing an actor in role to develop their character is called:

    1. Tableau
    2. Hot-seating
    3. Blocking
    4. Mime

    (1 marks)

  2. Describe three stages of the play-making process you used in a recent devised piece.

    (3 marks)

Summary

  • Explore, generate, decide intention, choose style, structure, rehearse, present, reflect.
  • Improvise before scripting.
  • Keep every scene connected to your intention.
  • Document the process.

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