Drama Lesson Plan on Creating Mood in a Play
Instruction on Visual Text in Theatre for Student Playwrights
Sep 9, 2009
The drama teacher must devise a lesson plan to encourage drama students to look closely at imagery. Andy Kempe’s book The GSCE Drama Coursebook – Second Edition [Stanley Thornes Publishers Ltd, 1997] describes how everyone responds to imagery, even if it is to simply walk away. This means looking at how imagery affects people and to critically analyse it via an evaluation. Only then can students begin to devise their own imagery for stage plays.
Setting the Scene for Stage Plays
A stage play consists of various imagery including backgrounds, colours, lighting and costumes. Furthermore, parts of a play could be seen as a series of pictures, snapshots to the overall drama. Each image provides a “text” which is intended to convey something to the audience. When the curtains first open for instance the audience will be presented with an image rather like a painting that is meant to set the scene, whether it is an idyllic wood clearing, a Spartan living room or a bustling marketplace. This serves to provide a mood or even tension.
Learning to Create an Emotional Response Within the Audience
The teacher may begin by distributing a photograph to each student. The photograph may depict any manner of things, from newspaper clippings, paintings or archive photography. Each student will need to answer the following questions:
- The initial emotional response; whether the image instilled anger, humour, fear or indifference.
- The first words that come to mind
- Does the image remind the student of something?
- Does the initial response alter after looking at the image for a while?
Analysing Imagery to Create a Story
After examining the student’s initial response to the imagery, more concrete questions may be answered for evaluation. These may be:
- What colours can be seen? If the image is in black and white, what colours could be imagined?
- What are the people doing in the picture?
- Do they appear to be happy/sad?
- What social class do the people appear to be?
- What is the weather like?
- What can be seen in the background?
Not every question can be answered with certainty but each student may come up with the best answer possible or to arrive at a reasonable assumption. The students may then collate their answers and devise a caption for the photograph, rather like those found in a comic strip in order to create a meaning.
The exercise may then be repeated by swapping the photos around. The students may find that different responses and captions will result.
Activity on Learning How to Create Imagery in Drama Class
Creating atmosphere through imagery on a stage setting serves to bring an emotional response in the audience. The lesson objective of the drama teacher is to heighten each student’s awareness of how imagery provokes a response. Evaluating how photographs or paintings bring an emotional response provides a firm foundation for students wishing to explore imagery as a whole and also to look at the setting of the drama as a separate entity to the drama itself.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
