Devising from an image: Narrative approaches

Waiting: an introduction to drama conventions

Acting Shakespeare: Monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Practising physical and vocal skills

Live theatre responses: Becoming a critic

Narrative structures using poetry: Developing monologues

Who Cares?: A devising unit

Acting Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Posture, gesture and voice in performance

Live theatre responses: Using social media

Approaching text: Bringing it to life

One text, different approaches

The journey: a verbatim project

Study of text in contemporary, cultural contexts

Live performance responses: Evaluating stagecraft

Understanding roles and responsibilities of the creative team

Commedia dell'arte: an introduction

Using Drama conventions to explore contemporary issues

Drama

Y9 Drama

Key Stage 3

Year 9

UNIT

In this lesson we will learn about 'Verbatim' Theatre as a style of Drama. We will explore key features, some examples, and make our own mini Verbatim piece

Introduction to verbatim theatre

﻿Hello, everyone. You're welcome to drama. I'm Mr. Bateson and I'm the teacher for this unit which is called the journey of verbatim theatre project. In this project, we're going to be learning about verbatim theatre, and we're going to be looking at some famous examples of verbatim theatre plays. And you're going to get chance to make some verbatim theatre of your own. So if you're studying practitioners or styles, then you're going to find this really useful. This is lesson one which is an introduction to verbatim theatre. So we'll find out what that is. We'll look at some examples to get us started and then we will create short piece of drama. I hope you look forward to it. If you're ready, let's see what we'll need for the session. You're going to need something to write with, so a pen or a pencil. And you're going to need something to write on. So a notebook or some paper. We will be making some of our own drama today. So you will need a little bit of space as well. Because this is a practical lesson and you'll be moving around, we need to keep safe. So this lesson should take place inside and make sure there is enough space for you to work, including above. So look out for any light fittings. You might want to take your shoes and socks off and act in bare feet. Either way make sure the floor is not slippy. Wear some comfortable clothing, so you can move around. You can pause the video now, if you need to get anything for this lesson. We're going to begin the lesson with a question. And I'll return to that question at the end to see what we've learned. Then I'll introduce the key terminology and explain what we mean by verbatim theatre. Next, I'll give you some examples of verbatim theatre plays so you can get the hang of what we mean. You'll get chance to bring some words to life, practical drama task and create your own piece of verbatim theatre. And we'll perform it at the end. There is also an exit quiz where you can check what you've learnt. So the first thing you might be thinking is what is verbatim theatre? You might never have heard that word before verbatim. Well, I'm going to make sure that you can answer that question by the end of this lesson. You'll also be able to give some examples of some verbatim theatre plays. Now, verbatim theatre is a style of drama. You may have already learned about different styles comedy, horror, naturalism, physical theatre. Well, this is just another one. If you look in the dictionary, verbatim means, in exactly the same words. And that's how we make our drama in this style. We find some words, we use them exactly as we found them. Let's start with that phrase then, verbatim theatre. And this is drama that is made from real people's words about real events or a certain subject. And it's usually made from interviews. In this lesson, we're also going to be talking about found text, which are real words too, but we kind of find them. So they might be in a newspaper or internet article or they might be in an official report. We'll come back to these key words later. Let me talk you through some examples of some verbatim theatre shows to give you an idea of what we mean. So this photograph is from a player called who cares by Matt Woodhead at Lung Theatre. This play is about three teenagers who are young carers. And that means they have a responsibility to look after family member at home who needs some additional help. Now to make the show, Matt interviewed real life young carers and he took the words and the answers from the interview to make the script. He used their answers exactly as they were spoken. And that's what we mean by verbatim. And what better way to make a play about young carers than to speak to some young carers themselves? That's what's really great about verbatim theatre. So we don't have to make things up or imagine how someone might think or feel. We can ask them and hear it directly from them. To make this sure, Ask me anything, the theatre company, The Paperbirds asked young people to send the theatre company questions. They really encouraged the young people to ask them anything. And so the show was able to explore how young people feel and what they think by contacting them directly. BlackWatch by Gregory Burke at the National Theatre of Scotland is a play about the Iraq war in 2004. And the script was made by interviewing former soldiers who were actually there. This play also includes clips from news reports and speeches from politicians too, but all the words are still real words that were actually spoken by someone at some point. The Caravan at Royal Court Theatre was a play about flooding and used interviews with people who had lost their homes due to flooding to make the script. The play was actually staged in a real caravan too. Home at the National Theatre, was a play about homelessness. And again, used interviews with young people who used a hostel. They also spoke to some of the people who worked at the hostel too. And we've said verbatim theatre is theatre that uses real people's words. And that's where all of those plays got their material from. So I wonder if we were making our own verbatim theatre play. If you would be clear as to where you could get your material from. There are 10 options here, and I'd like you to decide which of these could be verbatim material and which could not. You can maybe number your paper one to 10, write down the ones that you think that could be or you could put tick or a cross, or if you like, yeah you can kind of just point to the screen and decide which ones you think. There are some that could catch you out here. And we'll talk about them in a moment. Pause the video, go through each of these and decide. When you're finished, you can resume the video. Okay, so you've been deciding which of these source material would be appropriate to use in a verbatim theatre piece. Let's see how you got on. Here is the answers. So number one, if you ticked news article, that's correct. Yeah, we can use a news article because it's about a real event. Usually news articles also include quotes which are real people's words. An interview? Definitely, a lot of verbatim theatre is made from interviews, including some of the examples that I gave you. Now, number three was an old storybook. I tried to catch you out a little bit by saying that it was old book, any kind of storybook is made up. So it's not verbatim. It's not real people's words. It's a made up story, no matter how old it is. Number four was a transcript from a court case. And you could definitely use that. It's a real thing to really happen. A photograph. Now you might use a photograph in your performance, but there are no words. So you couldn't use it as a verbatim piece of script, but you could use number six, a famous speech, there is brilliant speeches out there, aren't they? And you could use them in a piece of verbatim theatre. A poem just like storybook is made up, so that would not count. A recorded phone call would. A cafe menu is a funny one because the words are real, but they've not been spoken by someone. So I probably wouldn't use that. And song lyrics, well they're made up too, so they wouldn't be counted verbatim material. In this lesson, we're going to be using some interview words to make your own piece of verbatim theatre. Let's jump straight in and have a go. I conducted an interview with some young people at a school I was working at and I asked them about their experience of lockdown in 2020. It was really interesting listening to the responses from the young people. They were all so different and I've put three of them here for you. Now they're written verbatim. They are here exactly as they were spoken in the interviews. And you might notice that they are not perfect words like you might see in a script. For example, there is some repetition, in the first one of the word friends. In the second one we can see the person says, I, well at start. And of course in the third one, we see the classic, like being dropped in the middle of that. If I was to take these words and then write a script based on them, I might tidy that up. But because this is a piece of verbatim theatre, we're going to use them exactly as they are. I'm going to ask you to create three mini role plays performing each of these three sentences. Now you do not know the young people who I interviewed. So you don't know what they look like. You don't know what they sounded like. So you're going to have to think about that. These are the things I'll be looking for a new performance. I want to see some facial expressions. I want to see some actions and some gestures and some body language. You'll be using your vocal expression to show how you feel. And I want you to try and find some different locations around your home to stage these role plays. You'll see what I mean in my examples in a minute. Have a watch of my examples, see if you can spot some of these things. We'll check back in a moment.

I haven't seen friends, but my friends, in over a year.

I, well, I'd say I cope ok at some points, and not ok at some other points.

It's brought us closer together. Like, we've had some nice quality time together, we've had, we've had some good laughs.

So what did you think? Did you notice the difference between the verbatim words and the kind of words we might normally hear in a script? I tried to use my facial expressions and my vocal expression to show how I was feeling. I wonder if you could see the contrast between the three performances. I tried to use actions and gestures, again to show how I was feeling. So one of the characters was very still, almost curled looking above. The character was moving around making a cup of tea and you could see that I did try to use different locations. I tried to keep it realistic, but I also tried to make it interesting by going to different places in my house. So now it's your turn. I'd like you to create three mini role plays to go with each extract of speech here. Speaking the words out loud. You can pause the video, take your time, find somewhere interesting in a house and practise these pieces of mini verbatim theatre. When you're finished, you can click resume and we'll carry on with the lesson. So I wonder how you did. Did you use your first your facial expression and your vocal expression to show that you were feeling different things? Did you use actions and gestures and body language? I wonder what locations around the house you chose to use. Now we've had little go of verbatim theatre. I want to talk about why we should work in this way. What are the advantages of the verbatim theatre? Why don't we just get a play that's already been written perfectly for us and perform that? Why would we go to the trouble of interviewing people and researching and speaking those words that are really really kind of realistic? Well, I think it actually helps us to create dialogue. Sometimes when we're creating words for plays, they don't sound realistic enough. If we use words exactly as they were spoken, then we know that they're really realistic. Verbatim can give us ideas for stories and themes. If we have a blank piece of paper and we think to ourselves what should we make a play about? Well, what better place to start than real life? We can think of things that really affect real people. And it will give us an idea for our play. It can also shine a light on important stories or even untold stories. If we think that nobody knows about, enough about homelessness or if nobody cares about young people during lockdown, then using verbatim words from them will hopefully highlight an important issue. I don't think it's easy though. I think it just challenges as actors and theatre makers. As actors, we have to do the material justice. We have to perform it in an authentic and honest, realistic where we don't want to be silly with the words. And as theatre makers, how do we make the show interesting? And make sure it's not just a series of interviews and monologues that we put on stage. With that in mind, let's have another go at a longer piece of verbatim theatre. And I would say the subject material here is a little bit more serious in tone than the previous interviews. Now I've taken this from an article, a news article, but it contains real words from real people and it's about a real event. Now this lesson is called the journey and I chose that name for this lesson because of reading this article. This is the story of Dalia who went on a journey from Syria to England. And this article tells us what happened. There are two voices in the article because there is a reporter who is telling the true story and there are also Dalia's words herself. Pause the video now and have a read through the article to get a feel for it. You might want to jot down any words that describe the article, maybe such as a journey, which is what I thought of when I read it. Maybe you think of a challenge, maybe you think of the word hope. Maybe you think of the word fear. And I'd also like to think about some of the things that Dalia says. Is there anything that stands out to you? Remember, we're going to be using the real words to create some drama in a moment. When you finish reading this, you can resume the video and we'll talk about how we might bring this to life. What did you think? I think it's a really interesting story. And if I wanted to make a play about refugees or asylum seekers and I found that very very challenging, and what would really help me is to hear from someone who's actually been through that experience themselves. So verbatim theatre would be a really good style to create a piece of work like that in. Remember that phrase from the start of the lesson, found text, well this is a good example of that. Now I've not been able to interview Dalia myself, but I have found this article with some of her words in it. So it's still verbatim, it's still real words spoken by a real person, but I didn't record them myself. So we can gather, found texts from places like newspaper articles, from interviews that may have been on television or from transcripts from court or official hearings or official reports too. So I wonder when you were reading the article, what were some of the sentences that jumped out to you? So if we're going to be telling the story of Dalia, we're going to use some of her own words. This is one of the phrases that jumped out to me straight away, I was living my life normally like every child, and my life changed suddenly. I thought that was a really dramatic kind of opening line. I liked this line too. It was difficult because I don't know the country. So we're getting to hear some of Dalia's emotions there. She's finding it difficult. She said she started to talk and open up a little bit. So even though it was difficult, she pushed herself and she went on a journey kind of physical journey. And to me, this line speaks of her going on a kind of spiritual or personal journey as well. This was a bit of positivity, something that went well for her. She said she made some good friends and people were beginning to be welcoming. And this line was just great. I felt as an ending line, it's very hopeful and optimistic and she says, I know I have a lot to give. I really liked the use of the word I in that, it's like she's talking directly to us. So I went through the article and I found five lines or sentences that really stood out to me. What I'd like you to do, is to highlight or write down six things of your own that stand out. Things that Dalia actually says. So you can print off the worksheet with that comes with this lesson and highlight them or you can just write them down. Remember, we're making a piece of drama, so what might go well at the start? What might go well to show emotions? What might go well at the end. Pause the video, find your six lines and resume the video when you're finished. So you should have chosen six lines from the news article. From the piece of found text that we're using to make our verbatim theatre performance. And in the same way that we took those lines from the interview with the young people that I did and made a mini role player, I'd like to you to create a mini role play now from these lines of Dalia's speech. So you'll be performing as Dalia telling the story of her journey. I'd like you to use your facial expressions and your vocal expressions to show us how she feels about that. And that might change. She might change from scared to hopeful for example. I'd like to experiment with actions and gestures. You don't have to sit still and just talk to the audience on the camera. You can move around, you can stand up, you can kneel down, you could have something in your hand, play around with it and bring Dalia's story to life. Pause the video and have a go at that. Take your time and learn your lines. Experiment with all the different ways that you can perform this. When you're finished, resume the video and we'll finish the lesson. So I wonder how you found that performing someone's real story using their own real words. And I wonder if that's kind of sparked your imagination about what other stories or news events or people that would make an interest in focus for another piece of verbatim theatre. The black lives matters movement would be a brilliant place to start, wouldn't, with interviews and eye witnesses and people with really strong opinions that we could use their own words to really give them a voice. Maybe there's a historical event, maybe something that happened in the past that you think we need to remember. Maybe you have heard about a person that you think is really inspiring and you'd like to create a piece of drama about them. You might go off and do some research or find some news articles of your own to find some found text to make a piece of drama with. You might even decide to interview your friends or your family to make a piece of drama and use their words like I did. Just be careful though, if you want to use someone's real words, you need to check with them that, that sort of care first. Before we go, I want to check that you understand what we mean by verbatim theatre. Remember that big question of the start, what is verbatim theatre? Hear the statement and you decide whether you think it's true or false. Verbatim theatre is drama made from real people's words about real life events or a certain subject, usually from interviews. Point to the answer that you think is correct now. It's true. And the key word there is real. Remember in the dictionary, verbatim means, exactly as was spoken. These have to be real words. Thanks so much for taking part in this lesson and introduction to verbatim theatre. I hope you've got a hang of what we mean by that and I've given you some examples of some great plays in that style too. We've had a go at creating some of our own mini verbatim performances. One from an interview and one from found text and it might've come sparked your imagination to go away and make another piece of verbatim theatre on a subject or a topic of your own. There is an exit quiz where you can go and check some of that knowledge too. And hopefully I'll see you for lesson two where we'll be looking at verbatim theatre in a little bit more detail. Great stuff, well done. If you've enjoyed the work today and you'd like to share some of your verbatim theatre performances, we'd love to see them. Whether they're your mini role plays from the interviews that I did with the young people, or whether it's your version of Dalia's story that you brought to life. With a parent or a carer, you can go to Twitter and you can upload those videos for us to have a look at, if not maybe I'll see you next time in another drama lesson.

In this lesson we will learn more about 'verbatim' theatre as a style of drama by performing some work from famous examples, conducting our own interviews, and devising a monologue from the answers.

In their own words': using interviews to devise monologue

﻿Hello, and welcome to drama. I'm Mr. Bateson, the teacher for this unit, "The journey", a verbatim theatre project. And I've called this unit "The journey" because each lesson is themed around a journey or travelling or going somewhere. This lesson is called "In their own words" and we're going to be using interviews to create monologue. In the first lesson we talked about what verbatim theatre was. If you haven't done that lesson don't worry because we'll go over it here. I hope you're looking forward to it. If you're ready, let's see what you'll need for the session. You're going to need something to write with so a pen or pencil, and you're going to need something to write on, so some paper or a notebook. You'll need some space to do some acting. And later on, you're going to need to find a volunteer. This should be somebody that you know quite well, someone in your family or a very close friend. We'll come to that later though anyway. Because this is a practical lesson and you'll be moving around, we need to keep safe. So this lesson should take place inside and make sure there is enough space for you to work, including above, so look out for any light fittings. You might want to take shoes and socks off and act in bare feet, either way make sure the floor is not slippy. Wear some comfortable clothing so you can move around. You can pause the video now, if you need to get anything for this lesson. In this lesson, we'll recap what we've learned previously. So we'll make sure you know what we mean by verbatim theatre before we start. Next, I'll introduce you to the key terminology from today, which is monologue, we're going to be creating one. I'll show you some examples of some verbatim theatre that were made from interviews to give you an idea of what we mean and you'll get a chance to perform them too. Next, we'll go and conduct our own interviews. I'll teach you how to do that properly before you take the interview and the words and the answers and make them into your own performance at the end. There's also an exit quiz which you can do to check all this learning afterwards. Let's check what we mean by verbatim theatre then. I'll read the statement and you decide whether you think the statement is true or false by pointing at the screen. Verbatim theatre is drama made from real people's words about real events or certain subjects, usually from interviews. Is that true or false? Point at the answer that you think is correct now. It's true. If you look in the dictionary, verbatim means in exactly the same words. So when we make verbatim theatre, we take the same words that a real person has spoken, we put them into a drama. Today, we're going to be using interviews to find those real words. Lots of plays in the verbatim style use interviews too. In another lesson we use found text which is different to an interview. So what do we mean by that? Again, point to the screen to the answer that you think is correct. Found text is words from other plays used to make new plays. What do you think? It's false. So found texts are real words too, but they're found in newspaper articles or in official reports. I suppose you could use words from a verbatim play to make another play but not from a fictional play or a story that's made up. Remember, verbatim means in exactly the same words. Let's go over the key words. Verbatim theatre is drama made from real people's words about real life events or a certain subject usually from interviews. In a moment I'm going to show you some really famous verbatim theatre plays that were made from interviews. You are going to make some interviews today and then you're going to use them to create a monologue. And a monologue is a solo speech from one character or actor usually to reveal inner thoughts or feelings and sometimes directly to the audience. That's what you'll be doing today. You'll be talking by yourself directly to the audience. The next thing I'd like to do is show you some examples of some verbatim theatre plays that were made from interviews. I'm going to show you two examples and I'm going to ask you to choose one of them to perform later to. So while we're looking at them, also be thinking about which ones you might like to perform. "Blackout" by Davey Anderson is a really great example of a verbatim theatre play. Now this play tells a story of a young offender who wakes up and finds himself in a prison cell. And it was made by interviewing a young offender. What better way to make a play about someone who's experienced going to prison than to speak to them directly? Well what Davey Anderson did was he interviewed someone and he took those answers and he edited them down into a script. He didn't just write down everything that the young person told him. He took out the most interesting bits. I'm going to read out the monologue here and I'd like to you to pick out some bits that you think are the most interesting. What stands out to you here? "Imagine you wake up, you open your eyes and you're like that. Where am I? Small room, bright lights, white walls, a metal door. Oh my God! Imagine you wake up and you're in a jail cell. You go up to the door, you bang your fists screaming, shouting, what am I doing here?" I really enjoyed performing that. I think there's just something exciting about performing something that you know someone has really said. I kind of almost felt like I was in a prison cell myself. I wonder what bits stood out to you, the bits that you found most interesting. I think the bits that stood out to me were the details. The small room, the bright lights and the white walls. It really helps to paint a picture. And I liked the questions too. Where am I? What am I doing in here? Kind of helps to get across that feeling of confusion that the person must be feeling to wake up in a cell there. And this is what you'll do when you conduct your interview. You'll have to go through the answers and find the most interesting bits. "Risk", by John Retallack is another example of a verbatim theatre play that was made from interviews. This time, the writers interviewed lots of different people and not just about one specific thing. Instead, they asked them to tell them about a time they took a risk. They got lots of different answers. And again, the writers took the best bits and made them into different speeches. In the play "Risk", there are speeches from lots of different characters. This speech is from a character called Michelle. She's talking about how she took a risk when she stood up to some bullies at her school. Again, I'll have a read through. I'd like you to pick out some of the best lines. Some of the lines that you think are really really interesting. 'Cause that's what you're all going to have to do later when you've done your own interviews. You'll have to go back through them and you're going to have to pick out the most interesting bits. So this is practise for that. Ready? "When I was 13, my family moved house. I went from a school with only twenty five in a class to a large school in Glasgow. Oh my God, what a shock. I was perfect choice for a big bully campaign, by the not so posh and even if I do say so myself not so beautiful girls. They say jealousy is what makes them bully. Well after about six months of torment, of hair being singed on the bus, pushed against the wall in the corridor, living in utter fear of everyone, I'd had enough. I took a risk. It's great that, isn't it? I wonder what you picked out as some of the most interesting bits. I think something that stood out to me was some of the information actually. I mean straight away we know that this person is 13 when they moved house. We know that they moved to Glasgow. We know that they went from a small class to a bigger school. Some of the other things that I liked were the kind of personal kind of informal bits of speech as well. So when she says that the girls were not so posh and not so beautiful. So both those plays began life as a series of interview questions and answers. Then the writers took the responses and made them into those grey scripts. You're going to be having a go at conducting some interviews and making them into scripts later on. But don't forget, it's also the actor's job to bring these words to life. So I'd like you to practise by performing one of those two extracts that we've looked at. Either the extract from "Blackout" or the extract from "Risk". You can rewind the video and pause it on the script you want or you'll be able to find the scripts in the worksheet section. Either way, I really want you to focus on your performance skills. So your facial expression, your vocal expression and your actions and gestures and movements. Are you going to be sat down? Imagine you wake up. Or stood up. I went from a school with only 25 in a class to a large school in Glasgow. Are you going to be very close to the camera or really far away? Bright lights, white walls, metal door. What are you going to be doing with your hands? What are you going to be doing with your facial expressions? I'd had enough. I took a risk. Pause the video now, find the script you want to perform and have a go at bringing it to life. When you finished, you can click resume, we'll move on to the next part of the lesson. So how did you get on? And I wonder whether you chose to perform the extract from "Blackout." And if you did, how did you manage to show the confusion or the fear of that character that found themselves waking up in a jail cell? Or whether you performed the extract from "Risk"? And if you did, how did you manage to show the change in that character's attitude. From being quite apprehensive at the start to being a little bit more confident at the end? I wonder how you used your facial expressions. What actions and gestures you included, how did you use your vocal expression? Did you use the space in different ways a bit like I demonstrated? I hope i didn't make you jump too much when I came really close to the camera before. Either way there's something really exciting about performing words that we know are real. That came from a real person, somewhere, sometime in an interview. What's even more exciting is when we conduct the interview ourselves. And that's what we're going to do for the next part of the lesson. We're going to be thinking about the questions that we asked somebody in order to get good enough answers to make an interesting script. So how do we come up with good questions? We want to avoid one word answers, don't we? We want people to give us information, tell us details. We want people to feel comfortable telling us their thoughts and feelings. So you're going to have to plan your questions well. And you're going to have to come up with more than one or two. If we were to just ask somebody, tell us about the time you were in prison and they said it was rubbish, then we'd be a bit stuck. We'd have to make sure we have some other questions to follow up with. Why was it rubbish? How did you feel? What could you see? What could you hear? What were you worried about? I wonder what kind of questions the writers asked in the interviews to make the two plays we've just looked at? What kind of questions might have they asked Michelle about the time she took a risk? Let's have a look at some potential questions. They might have said, "Tell us about a time when you were in a new or strange place?" They might've said, "Can you remember your first day at that school?" They might have had to dig a little bit deeper though. They might have had to say, "How old were you? Where were you? What was the best bit? Do you regret anything?" All of these questions could be used, couldn't they, to create a good piece of verbatim theatre script. There are some rules though. I'd like to take you through them now. Because we're dealing with real people, and these are real stories, they're quite personal, we have to be really careful when we're making verbatim theatre from interviews. First thing we need to do is choose our topic carefully. So we don't want to talk about anything too distressing today. Next thing you need to do is plan your questions. Make sure we're not asking anything too personal, make sure we're not being too general either. Am I going to find someone to interview who we know well? I'd like that to be someone in your family or a friend. Check permission with them that they are happy to be interviewed and they are happy for you to use their words to make a piece of drama. That is really important. Once somebody has said something in an interview, they can't unsay it. So be really clear about what's going to happen with the answers they give you. I would try and record the interview if you can, maybe on a mobile phone or an iPad so that you've got the words exactly. You can also then check permission again after the interview. Make sure the person's happy, that what they've said is true and make sure that they're still happy for you to use their words to make a piece of drama. If you're in any doubt about using somebody's words, leave it out. This is meant to be a fun activity so let's try and keep things light. So some of the topics that you could interview somebody about are in front of you now. I wonder which ones interest you the most. It'd be great to ask your best friend how to be a friend maybe, wouldn't it? It could be interesting to hear about what people regret. Maybe they've made some mistakes in their life. Michelle in this story spoke about her first day at school, didn't she? What we're going to focus on is a memorable journey or place. That's why this unit's called "The journey". So, remember the first thing we're going to do, we've chosen our topic carefully. This will give somebody to talk about something they remember in detail but hopefully it's not going to make anybody feel too uncomfortable. The next thing we're going to do is create some questions for our interview. So I'm going to be looking for around five to 10 questions. Now remember, these needs to be good questions that are going to help us write a script. Here's some example questions that you might ask in your interview about a memorable journey. Some of these questions help us to get some information. How old are you? Where were you? Some of them allow us to get into a little bit more detail. So what happened? What could you see? Some of these questions are a bit more challenging, aren't they? Can you describe this in adjectives or even a simile? That will help us script the even better. You can also ask about feelings too or if anybody else was involved, if there are any other characters. Okay, that's enough examples from me. I'm going to ask you to get your pen and paper and plan five to 10 interview questions around this topic, a memorable journey or a favourite place. You can pause the video now, write down your questions, when you've done that click resume and we'll move on to the interview part. So have you got your five to 10 questions ready to go and ask someone? I hope so. This is the best bit. So go and find somebody to interview and remember before you even start asking the questions, explain what you're doing. Explain that you'll use the answers to make a piece of drama. Make sure the person you're asking is okay with that. After the interview, check with the person you've interviewed they're happy still with everything that you've talked about. Then, what I'm going to ask you to do is to edit those answers into a script, 10 line monologue. Remember that key word, monologue? That's where one person, an actor or a character speaks usually directly to the audience revealing their feelings and thoughts. So you're going to perform kind of like the person you've interviewed telling their story of this memorable journey. It's going to take a little bit of time to do the interview and to edit your answers into a script. So don't rush, you can pause the video. Remember, these are the three things that you want in your script. Some information, some details, some thoughts and feelings. I'll give you some time to do that. When you've finished click resume and we'll think about bringing these stories to life on stage as actors. Okay. So you've planned your questions. You've done your interview. You've made sure everybody's happy. And then you've edited all those answers into 10 lines that you are going to perform as a monologue. Remember, don't just read out the answers. That's not an interesting piece of theatre. Just because the story is good and you enjoyed listening to it in the interview, doesn't mean it's finished. As an actor, you still need to bring it to life. So I want to see facial expression, vocal expression, actions and gestures, and do move around. Think of different ways you can use your space. I'll give you a little example. I spoke to one of my friends, a good friend who went walking in the mountains once and I asked him about his experience in an interview. I then edited it into a 10 line monologue, which I'm going to perform for you now. It's snowing. My fingers and toes are numb. I've got a headache. My feet hurt and we've been walking for eight days. Prayer flags are galloping loudly, I can barely hear myself think. I'm about ready to give up. And then there it is. Blue kind of pink, snow topped. This is what we've been waiting for. This why we're here. All of a sudden it goes silent. It was worth it. Okay. So that was my example. Could you see me using my face? Did you hear the different ways I used my voice? I tried to include actions and gestures. And I made sure I didn't stay in one spot all the time. Pause the video now, and bring your verbatim piece of drama to life. When you're finished, click resume and we'll move into the last part of the lesson. So you've just created a piece of verbatim theatre from an interview and you've performed it as a monologue. I hope it sparks your interest in this style of theatre. And maybe you're thinking about what other people you could interview and what other topics you could talk about. What would make a really interesting piece of verbatim theatre Anyway, well done for today. you've worked really hard exploring how we can make verbatim theatre from an interview and you've performed your own monologue too. We looked at some examples of some famous verbatim plays that themselves were made from interviews. And you might even come across those plays if you were to be studying drama at GCSE or A-level. Great work, keep it up. I'd be really keen to see some of your performances from today. So if you'd like to share your work with us, and don't forget, make sure the person you interviewed is happy for that too. Then you can go to Twitter and you can share with us your verbatim theatre monologues. If not, that's no problem. And I'll see you in another drama lesson, another time.

In this lesson we will learn more about 'verbatim' theatre as a style of drama by looking at some autobiographical solo shows, and by drawing on our own life experiences as inspiration for drama.


My Story - Making Autobiographical Drama

Unit Overview: The journey: a verbatim project

Lessons:

Introduction to verbatim theatre

In their own words': using interviews to devise monologue

My Story - Making Autobiographical Drama