Drama

Kindergarten actors work to bring their imagination to the stage. Through a series of drama games, songs, mindfulness activities, and yoga, they work on focus, physical awareness, and vocal control. Students advance from a focus on the self to an awareness of others, allowing them to begin productive group work by the spring. From the musical theatre game of "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz" to the final performance challenges of "Acting out a Story," Kindergarten actors are constantly in motion.

First-grade actors begin with pantomime, acting without sound or words. The focus here is on how an actor can tell a story through facial expression and body movement only. They then transition to radio drama and the Foley artist. Here, the students learn about Jack Foley and the art of sound effects and voice acting. In the last trimester, they combine body and voice in storytelling. Emphasis throughout the course is placed on creativity, collaboration in planning, body and vocal awareness, and performance skills.

First grade students perform Reader’s Theatre during a Lower School morning meeting.

Our second-grade actors explore the many ways to invent and represent a character in the theatre. Students begin by reviewing and learning new acting skills through games and activities focused on the art of miming and personification while continuing to hone mindfulness and body control skills through our meditation and yoga practice. They then move on to the study of the art of puppetry. Students learn the technical skills involved in bringing a puppet to life, including mouth synchronization, puppet eye contact, proper height and positioning, believable action, and walk simulation. These skills continue to be developed as the students create their own puppet characters and place them in a puppet show of their own design.

Students explore how words, sounds, actions, and images are used to tell a story. They begin with the study of theatrical tableaux. In a tableau, small groups collaborate to make still images to represent a scene, making sure to use the theatrical conventions of levels, depth, eye contact, facial expressions, body stance, and depth. Third-grade students end the trimester with a study of modern reader theatre play adaptations of classic stories, where they work on the skills of vocal projection, diction, characterization, and interpretation of a story. Each class then performs two play readings (recent readings include The Cheetah and the Sloth (based on The Tortoise and the Hare) and The Emperor's New Hair (based on The Emperor's New Clothes).

Carl Sandburg's "38 Definitions of Poetry" using dance concepts to illustrate his metaphors.

After an introduction and review of acting skills and improvisation games, fourth-grade drama students then experience the joys and challenges that take place when cultures come together through our "Culture Clash" immersive acting exercise. In this multifaceted activity, students are assigned to a group of "woodland animals" that must come together to solve their respective problems. Each animal group comes with their own unique set of cultural norms, behaviors, and expectations. The animals must work together for the common good, all while navigating their cultural differences. The unit emphasizes how respect for cultural norms that are different from our own can be challenging but ultimately leads to better communication and problem-solving skills across cultural barriers. Additionally, students learn that the differences that exist between cultures can often be a benefit when we take the time to listen and understand why and how these differences came to be. The year ends with a study in monologue readings and improvisational acting skills.

After an introduction to team building, collaboration, and improvisational acting exercises, fifth-grade students then begin learning how to read a script like an actor. An actor's process is explored step-by-step as each student keeps an actor's notebook where he or she is challenged to explore the subtext in a script or scene. Actors must act like investigators to identify the true meaning of their dialogue, so that they can play the character’s subtextual intention, rather than just recite the lines. Overlaying the meaning of the subtext on top of the dialogue does not only give the actor something to do and make for a more interesting performance, but also gives the actor a better understanding of the character he/she is portraying. Each activity assigned in class leads to a final scene study and performance with fellow students at the end of the year.