History/Projects & Assessments

Reading Room

• Project – Create an area in the room where students can read plays, learn about playwrights, do historical research or peruse theatre books.  Create a weekly schedule for students to have play reading time to increase theatrical literacy and vocabulary.  Have the students write about each play or playwright as they read.
• Assessment –Write-ups about each play or playwright.  Assess if the students are using their time wisely to increase their theatre knowledge.

Theatre Era Research

• Project – After discussing theatre history and its timeline, have the students work in small groups to research a specific time period in theatre’s history.  Give each student a specific aspect to look at such as types of stage, costumes, plays, playwrights, etc.  Each group should present its findings and give a fact sheet to the class.  In addition, they could turn in research notes and a paper. (With such a large research project, it is important to establish specific criteria and timelines as well as periodic checks of work.  A rubric could be helpful.)
• Assessment – Presentation and fact sheet.  Research notes and paper. 

Period Scenes

• Project – Have the students work in small groups to present scenes from a specific theatrical period. Supply each group with a short scene or assign the group a time period and let them locate a suitable scene.  Each group will incorporate the appropriate design and staging elements for their scene.  Each group should share their scenes and justify their presentation choices with historical evidence.
• Assessment – Performance and discussion of period scene and performance style.

Greek Theatre

• Project – After reading a major Greek tragedy and studying the form and structure, work as a class to adapt a Greek myth into an original Greek tragedy.  The students will need to act as dramaturges, playwrights, designers, actors, directors, etc.  Once the production is created, perform within the school for English classes that are reading Greek myths/plays or for Social Studies classes studying Ancient Greece.
• Assessment – Adaptation of a Greek myth into a tragedy.  Completion of all student responsibilities. 

Commedia dell’arte

• Project – Introduce the stock characters, some simple lazzi and the basic scenarios of Commedia dell’arte.  Divide the class into groups and, after each student picks a character, have the groups script their own Commedia scenes (dicuss Commedia’s use of improv in lieu of scripting).  If desired, have the students make masks for their characters and incorporate mask work into the project.  This work on stock characters and common scenarios could lead to a lesson on current forms of entertainment that make use of stereotypes/stock characters and similar circumstances (e.g., situation comedies).
• Assessment – Development of a Commedia scene.

Japanese Theatre

• Project – Divide the class into four groups and assign each group one of the four forms of classical Japanese theatre: noh, kabuki, kyogen and bunraku.  Each group must develop a presentation for the rest of the class that teaches about their form of Japanese theatre.  The presentations may consist of lectures, demonstrations of performance techniques, excerpts from scripts, visuals of design elements, a class activity, an assessment activity, etc.  Since the groups will be rather large, the students may want to further divide research and presentation tasks among themselves.
• Assessment – Development of effective presentation.

Russian Theatre

• Project – After reading Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard or Three Sisters as a class, ask the students to research the issues and events that are in the background of the play to get a better understanding of Russian history at this time.  Using their new knowledge of Russian history and theatre, work as a class to adapt Chekhov’s short story Sleepy into a one act.  Divide roles between the students; they will need to act as playwrights, dramaturges, actors, designers, directors, etc.
• Assessment – Adaptation of Sleepy into a one act.  Completion of all student responsibilities.