Playwriting from Pre-writing to Performance
Dara Shaw
presented at the Bahá'í Language Educators Special Interest Group session
Association for Bahá'í Studies conference, Friday August 30, 2002
Spiritual principles
- universal participation
- appreciation of cultural diversity
- consultation
- anonymous voting without mentioning names
Requirements and assumptions for collaboration:
- The playwriting process should incorporate the principles of intercultural awareness, understanding and respect.
- All participants must participate, and lend their talents to the project.
Targeted English Skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Publishing, Negotiating and Performing.
Objectives:
- Students will determine the division of responsibilities such as acting, gathering costumes props, scenery, programs, cover design, and word processing.
- Students will carry out all their individual responsibilities
- Students will produce as many drafts of the script as necessary until they are universally satisfied with the project.
- Students will chose the title by secret ballot
- Students will overcome obstacles such as cultural objections, egos, personality conflicts, and resistance about the value of playwriting as a way to learn English.
- Students will perform their play in front of a live audience.
Activities:
- Students will write their play after choosing their characters.
- Students will write many drafts.
- When the play is finished, the students will begin to rehearse the play, and make modifications and changes to the script as necessary.
- They will then make lists of needed props and costudents.
- Students will memorize and practice their lines.
- Students will rehearse the play in class.
- Students will choose music.
- Students will practice on the stage.
- Students will have a dress rehearsal, and then perform their play.
Tips for the Instructor:
Get technical expertise with lighting and sound.
Practice, practice, practice.
Have fun!
Typical student responses:
Colombia
"Writing the play was an interesting experience, because a lot of people had to write in a little time, a play. This was very good, but it was not easy, because we are from different countries and cultures. We have different points of view, but I think it is a challenge, and I think we did a good job. This is my first time working with a big multicultural group, writing a play and acting in a play. I had fun and I learned many useful things for daily life."
Korea
"Thanks to you I got a chance to write the script of the play, although such work had little relationship to my future study. I think it was totally different and new experience which I had never taken."
"In my opinion, writing the play and acting wasn't helpful. The reason is that it doesn't need high level vocabulary, but just vocabulary like common conversation. It is useful for learning English, but it is to long way. To be honest, it doesn't interest me. I recommend volunteers are the best as their interest for play."
Israel
"I felt uneasy about writing the play, but now I can tell it was an interesting experience."
Venezuela
"Writing a play and doing the performance for me was a new experience for me. Thanks to its development, I had the opportunity to know more about my classmates' cultures and their good sense of humor."
Taiwan
"The most valuable treasure is learning about and cooperating with my classmates from other cultures. I will always remember the moment on the Eiesland stage where we rehearsed our drama. That was after the daytime search and everybody went to sleep. Our communication skill teacher Joy played the lullaby. It was so quiet, so relaxed. I felt so peaceful as though it would be the most beautiful moment of our cooperation."
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