Josh Greene

THR 445
3/29/15
Dr. Klein
Class: Applied and Interactive Theatre Unit 1 Introduction
Context: The curriculum is designed for a public school with a couple hundred students. The
class meets twice a week for two hours. It is available to take when students begin their junior
year. There are twelve students enrolled in the class. The purpose of the 18 week course is to
introduce students to Forum Theatre and different variations of it. The students will also write
and perform their own piece. The purpose of the 6 week class is to get the students working
towards forming an ensemble and understanding the concept of Forum Theatre and its different
variations.
Grade Level: 11th & 12th grade
Number of Weeks: __6__ X __4__ = 24 Total Contact Hours
Enduring Understandings and Skills
- To actively communicate with peers with a professional demeanor
- To create an effective working ensemble
- To gain a basic knowledge of the different forms of Forum Theatre
- To prepare an interactive theatre piece in class
- To play and use different exercises for interactive theatre workshops
- To analyze and interpret different images
- To teach others
Learning Outcomes
- To critically think and write thoughtful reflections in the form of weekly journals
- To perform with confidence
- To practice vulnerability in the workspace
- To recognize the different forms of Forum Theatre
National Standards Addressed
- Creating: Practice and revise a devised script or scripted drama/theatre work using theatrical
conventions
- Performing: Perform a scripted drama/theatre work for a specific audience

- Responding: Formulate a deeper understanding and appreciation of a drama/theatre work by

considering its specific or intended audience
- Connecting: Investigate how cultural perspectives, community ideas, and personal beliefs
impact a drama/theatre work
Weekly Procedures
Week 1
Tuesday (Journal/Lecture)
- I will begin the first class period with a journal entry. The class will be expected to complete
and turn in a journal entry every Tuesday. The first prompt will be, What are your goals for this
class? What are your overall goals for the semester After the class has completed their journal
entry, I will hand out the syllabus. The syllabus will be discussed and the assignments explained.
Every Thursday, one group will present a presentation on one of the chapters from Adam
Blatners book Interactive and Improvisational Drama. I will pair everybody in the class up and
assign them their chapters. Next, we will move on to warm-ups. I believe that warming up before
class can be beneficial. It allows the student to decompress and wake their mind and body up.
We will figure out a set schedule documenting who leads the warm-ups and on what day. Like
past classes, leading warm-ups is tied in with your participation grade. The warm-ups should be
no longer than ten minutes and consist of physical and vocal exercises.
Thursday (Action)
- Warm-up
- The lesson for Unit 1 will be heavily influenced by an interactive theatre workshop described in
David Diamonds book Theatre for Living: the art and science of community-based dialogue.
We will go around the circle and each student will have three minutes to talk about themselves to
the class. The purpose of this is to get everyone comfortable with each other as we begin the
ensemble process. Following the introductory process, we will move on to some ensemble
building exercises. The first will be balancing. Divided in pairs, the students will stand facing
each other and place their hands on the others shoulders and push. The purpose is not to push
over your partner, but to find the strength and balance between the two. Talking is not allowed
(Diamond, 88). The next exercise will be pulling. The students will take their partners by the
wrist and lean back. While leaning back, the students will continue to lean and sit down. Then
they will stand back up with their wrists still locked (Diamond, 89). They will repeat this a
couple of times. These games are designed to start the group thinking about what the essence of
theatre is, what experiences are common in the room, and what power relationships and layers of
complexity exist in the issue we are investigating (Diamond, 91). The students will move the
desks to the edge of the room. Then they will close their eyes and walk around the space. If they
run into someone, then they must feel the persons hand and move on. After several minutes, I
will tell the students to hold on to the next hand they touch. Soon everyone will be holding
someones hand. Keeping your eyes closed, get to know the hand or hands you are holding. Is it
a dry hand, or a moist hand? A bony hand, or a fleshy hand? A warm hand, or a cold

handReally get to know the hand(s) (Diamond, 91). The students will close their eyes and
walk around the room and try to find the hand that they were just holding. The final exercise of
todays lesson will consist of sculpting an image. Still in pairs, one of the students will be the
sculptor and the other the clay. I will tell the class an emotion and the sculpture must mold his
clay into an image that expresses that emotion. For example, if the emotion is anger, then the
sculptor might mold their clay into having clenched fists and a wide open mouth.
Week 2
Tuesday (Journal/Action)
- Journal: What are some problems in your community? School? How would you fix them?
- Warm-up
- Todays lesson will be a continuation of the interactive workshop from Blatners work. We
begin by reviewing and quickly going through the push, pull, hand, and sculpting exercises.
After that, we will move on to a new exercise. The focus of this exercise is image building.
Images are the core building block of theatre. Often a director is creating images from his or her
vision on the stage by manipulating actors bodies, light, set, etc. (Diamond, 93). The students
form a circle and I construct a shape with my body in the middle. I will ask each student what
they see when they look at the image. There are no right or wrong answers. It is important for the
students to not let the other students know what their image is. By not naming images we start
to break down artificial barriers between the individual consciousness and that of the group. In
doing so we bridge the mind/body gap and start to awaken the group consciousness (Diamond,
98). Imagination is important. All twelve students will have a chance to construct an image with
the other students. The image will be the problem and/or the solution they wrote about in their
journal. The student will form the image by sculpting the other students. When they are
finished, everyone will have the opportunity to describe what they think the image is. We will
form images the remainder of class.

Thursday (Action/Presentation)
- Presentation: The first group will present over chapter 20 Drama in Prisons from Blatners
book Interactive and Improvisational Drama.
- Warm-up
- Activating the images is a deepening of the community dialogue. Each activation is really a
question that the workshop participants answer through action. Integral to image activation is the
internal monologue (Diamond, 100). Like last class, the students will form images. This time
the images will not be connected. I will ask the students to say their images internal monologue
out loud for thirty seconds. After thirty seconds the students will stop. I go to each individual
student and tap them. When I tap them, they will tell me one sentence as their character. The
sentence must begin with I want (Diamond, 101). This exercise helps to focus and discover
motivations of the character. The students will form another image. Instead of saying their inner
monologue, they will reveal a secret thought. I am going to come and touch you. When I do,
speak your secret thought-the thing your character is really thinking deep inside right now but
would never actually say out loud in the situation (Diamond, 103). The next exercise will

continue the focus on image building and interpretation. One student will form an image.
Immediately, another student will enter the scene and form another image. The students will yell
out what comes to mind when they see the two images. After everyone has said something, the
first student will leave the scene and another student will enter and form an image along with the
second student. This process is repeated until each student has gone multiple times.
Week 3
Tuesday (Journal/Lecture)
- Journal: Reflect on a moment in your life that you wish you could go back and change. What
would you do different?
- Warm-up
- I will lecture about the history of Forum Theatre, Augusto Boal, and the different forms. This
lecture will be very extensive and take up the entire time. The students will be told to take good
notes because there will be a test over the material next class period.
Thursday (Action/Presentation/Test)
- The test will be administered at the beginning of the class. There will be a thirty minute time
limit.
- The second group will present over chapter 16 Drama Therapy from Blatners book
Interactive and Improvisational Drama.
- Warm-up
- The first exercise we will do today is air boxing. The students will partner up with someone
they yet to work with. The partners will begin to fight. They can kick, punch, scratch, and pull
hair. There are two rules: You must move in slow motion, and you cannot touch your partner
(Diamond, 298). After several minutes, I will ask that each group move three steps back from
their partner and continue the exercise. This is an important exercise because physical violence
might be involved in one of the pieces. The next exercise is another one from Diamonds book.
Everyone walk around the room, eyes open, just as yourself. As you do that, think of a person-it
could be someone you know in your life, someone from the news, even someone iconic, who
you believe is part of the problem in regard to the issue we are exploring (for this exercise my
students will use a character from their upcoming Interactive Scene) (Diamond, 325). The
students will walk around the room as that character. Then they will come up with a gesture that
represents that person. While walking around the room, the students will begin to acknowledge
other characters in the room. If you see someone that you think your character belongs with, then
go start a group with them. After groups have been formed the students will sit down and discuss
their characters. They will talk about their characters fear, desires, actions, and motivations.
Working together, the groups will form a short skit that shows the characters in conflict. I will
facilitate the activity and ask the students what they see during the scene. Again the emphasis is
on having many interpretations. This will take up the remainder of the class.
Week 4
Tuesday (Journal/Action)
- Journal: What character or role did you pick to embody last class? Why?

- Warm-up
- Todays class period will focus on reviewing all the different exercises that we have learned the
last couple of weeks, as we move closer to our interactive scenes.
Thursday (Action/Presentation)
- The third group will present over chapter 24 Self-Revelatory Performance from Blatners
book Interactive and Improvisational Drama.
- Warm-up
- Todays class will work with one of the interactive theatre scripts from a past class. This will
set precedent for the final project in this class.
- I will hand out the prompt for the 2-3 page paper that is due at the end of the last class during
week 6
Week 5
Tuesday (Journal/Action)
- Journal: Why should we be conscious of our decisions? Who do we specifically impact in our
everyday lives with our decisions?
- Warm-up
- The first two students will present their Interactive Scene. Each student will have one hour to
work their piece. They will use the exercises we have learned in class and apply them to their
piece. For example, the inner monologue and image building would be used. The purpose of the
interactive piece is to tell a story with a conclusion you would like to change. The student
presenting their scene will work with four other students in class. The three left will be audience
members who interact and try to change the outcome of the scenario. The student will form an
image from their story using the four students. The class will say out loud what they see. There
are no right or wrong answers, everything is an interpretation. The student will then tell their
story. After we have heard the story, the student will assign roles. They will then form another
image. While holding this image, the students will say their inner monologue out loud. The
student in charge will walk around and listen to all the inner monologues. They should feel free
to change anyones monologue in order to tell the story more accurately. When the student is
satisfied, they will begin improvising the scene. Each student will narrate their own story. We
will begin improvising the scene without dialogue, focusing solely on the narration. After we
have worked the scene a couple of times without dialogue, we will slowly begin to add it.
Eventually, the scene run all the way through including its conclusion. The students in the
audience will now have the opportunity to intervene and change the outcome of the scene. They
are able to tap out any character in the scene and take their place.
Thursday (Action/Presentation)
- The last group will present over chapter 21 Theatre of the Oppressed from Blatners book
Interactive and Improvisational Drama.
- Warm-up

- The next two students will present their Interactive Scene. It will follow the same formula as
Tuesdays lesson.
Week 6
Tuesday (Journal/Action)
- Journal:
- Warm-up
- The next two students will present their Interactive Scene. It will follow the same formula as
the past couple of lessons.
Thursday (Action/Presentation)
- Warm-up
- The final two students will present their Interactive Scene. It will follow the same formula as
the past couple of lessons.
- Due: Students will turn in their 2-3 page paper about their Interactive Scene.
Materials and Resources
- A coffin, a couple of acting blocks, desks, a door, and copies of David Diamonds Theatre for
Living and Adam Blatners Interactive and Improvisational Drama

Journal Entry (6 x 20 = 120 points)

For the first six weeks, there will be five journal prompts. The purpose of the journal is to
get you thinking about what we are doing in class and the connection to everyday life. Each
journal entry is worth 20 points.

Length

Content

Presentation

Your entry is 8
sentences long
or more
Your entry
answers all parts
of the prompt
with specific
examples to
back up your
opinion
Your entry is
correctly labeled
and contains
little to no
spelling or
grammatical
errors
5 points

Your entry is
around 6
sentences
Your entry
answers most of
the prompt

Your entry is
around 4
sentences
You seemed
confused by the
prompt or did
not articulate
well enough

Your entry is
around 2
sentences
You seemed
confused by the
prompt and did
not articulate
yourself

Your entry is
correctly
labeled, but
contains a few
spelling or
grammatical
errors
4 points

Your entry is not

correctly labeled
and has many
spelling or
grammatical
errors

Your entry
contains mostly
spelling and
grammatical
errors

3 points

2 points

Interactive Scene
Weeks 5 and 6 will be dedicated to working on interactive scenes. Each student will be
required to bring in a story from their life where they did not like the conclusion. For example, a
fight with a loved one. For four class periods, two students will workshop/present their stories.
This, along with warm-ups and presentations of Blatners book, is included in your participation
grade.

Blatner Presentation (20 points)

The students will be divided into pairs and assigned a certain chapter from Blatners book. They
will then be in charge of creating a presentation summarizing the chapter and presenting different
examples of the specific theatre they discuss. They will also be asked to provide any additional
resources (which can be found in the back of the chapter), along with any other research. The
presentation should be around 8-10 minutes and be accompanied by visual aids.

Interactive Scene Paper (50 points)

This paper is due at the end of class during the 6th week. The paper should be 2-3 pages long and
reflect on the scene you have selected to share/workshop/present in class. The story should be
detailed and clear to follow. What is setting? Who all was involved? You may also talk about
how the conclusion made you feel. What would you change? How would you change it? This
paper is to help prepare us for the scenes in class.

Length

Content

Presentation

Paper meets the

length
requirement of
2-3 pages
The paper
answers all parts
of the prompt
with specific
details
Little to no
grammatical
errors
100 points

The paper is 1
and page

The paper is less

than 1 and
pages

The paper is less

than one page

The paper
answers all parts
of the prompt,
but lacks
specific detail
Contains a few
spelling or
grammatical
errors
75 points

The paper
somewhat
touches on the
prompt, but lack
detail
Contains many
spelling or
grammatical
errors
50 points

The paper does

not answer the
prompt and lacks
detail
Contains mostly
spelling and
grammatical
errors
25 points

Grading Breakdown

Blatner Presentation (20 points)

5%

Interactive Scene Paper (50 points) 15%

Journal (120 points)

10%

Test (25 multiple choice, 100 pts.)

20%

Participation

50%
100%

Bibliography
Blatner, Adam, ed. Interactive and Improvisational Drama. Lincoln: iUniverse, 2007. Print.
Diamond, David. Theatre for Living. Trafford, 2007. Print.
Lazarus, Joan. Signs of Change New Directions in Theatre Education. Chicago: Intellect, 2012.
Print