VCE Drama

Unit 3, 2017
Now is the time to get serious
From week 2 we will launch straight into your ensemble performance.
You must be committed to developing knowledge and skills that you
apply to performance. Throughout the year you will explore a range
of non-naturalistic performance styles, theatrical conventions and
dramatic elements. With the addition of the written exam it is
important to recognise that while you do most things, you must also
be able to describe and analyse them (the written examination
represents 25% of your total grade for the year).

Unit 3 Ensemble Performance

Outcome 1 Creating and Presenting an Ensemble Performance.
You will develop skills and knowledge in:
Taking specific subject matter from a variety of sources: stories,
myths, music, film, art, current and historical events, etc, and
applying them to the development of characters within the
ensemble.
Refining expressive skills:
Voice: workshops or exercises focusing on projection,
experimenting with verbal and vocal sounds of different pitch,
tone or duration; tongue-twisters, alliteration, colouring words,
emphasising verbs.
Gesture: using the body or body parts to represent objects or
creating symbols through body shape.
Movement: workshops based on Laban techniques, exploring
the ways actors move through space to communicate
characters.
Facial expression: exercises focusing on miming reactions to
words, using exaggerated expressions to communicate
meaning.
Enhancing through Performance skills
Focus: the ability of the actor to commit to their performance
and the ability to sustain character through the use of
concentration. Focus can also be used to create an implied
character or setting through manipulating the audiences
attention towards a specific place. The manipulation of focus
can assist the actor to develop an effective actoraudience
relationship.

Timing: Used to control or regulate the pace of a performance.

Timing can be manipulated in drama to build dramatic tension,
evoke feeling, coordinate effective synchronisation within an
ensemble and develop the comic potential of a scene.
Energy: the intensity an actor brings to a performance. At
different times in a performance an actor might use different
levels of energy to create different dynamics.
Actoraudience relationship: the way in which an actor
deliberately manipulates the audiences emotions, moods and
responses to the action. This can be done through the
placement of the performer in relation to the audience, the
way the actor addresses and engages the audience, and the
emotional and intellectual response to the characters
situation.
Using the Dramatic elements:
Climax: The most significant moment of tension or conflict in a
drama, often occurring towards the end of the plot. Multiple
climaxes and/or an anti-climax can also occur. The action of a
drama usually unravels after the climax has transpired but the
work might finish with a climactic moment.
Conflict: generally occurs when a character cannot achieve an
objective due to an obstacle. This obstacle may be internal or
external between characters or between characters and their
environment. Conflict can be shown in a variety of ways, for
example through physical, verbal or psychological means.
Conflict can be embedded in the structure of the drama.
Contrast: presents the dissimilar or opposite in order to
highlight or emphasise difference. Contrast can be explored in
many ways and can include contrasting characters, settings,
times, themes, elements, stagecraft and performance styles.
Mood: the overall feeling or emotion that a performance can
evoke. This may be achieved through manipulation of acting,
conventions or stagecraft.
Rhythm: is a regular pattern of sounds, words or actions.
Performances can also have their own rhythm that can be
influenced by the emotional nature of the plot, the pace of line
delivery, the pace of scene transitions, and the length of those
scenes and the dialogue within them.
Sound: is created by the performer through the possible use of
voice, body percussion and objects to create an effect in
performance and enhance meaning. Sound may include silence
or the deliberate absence of sound.
Space: involves the way the actor/s use/s the performance area
to communicate meaning, to define settings, to represent
status and to create actoraudience relationships. This may be
achieved through the use of levels, proximity and depth. The
use of space may be symbolic.

Symbol: is used to create meaning that is not literal. Symbol

allows performers to communicate ideas and themes through
words, stagecraft and expressive skills.
Tension: is the suspense that holds an audiences attention as
a performance unfolds. The release of tension can have a
comic or dramatic effect.
stagecraft elements: used to describe areas of production. Nonnaturalistic use of stagecraft might feature over-sized props,
exposed lighting rig, stylised make-up, open stage with no scenic
elements to define place or time, symbolic costuming, musical
underscore to enhance mood. Stagecraft may also involve used of
direction, costume, lighting, set design, sound production, makeup, mask, props and theatre technologies as required to structure
or to realise dramatic potential of stimulus material.
non-naturalistic performance styles and theatrical conventions,
including the relationship between actor and audience; comparing
the theories of:
Stanislavski & Meyerhold,
Brecht & Boal,
Grotowski & Artaud,
Laban and Bogart.
Theatrical conventions refer to specific aspects of the
performance style that enhance the meaning. They generally
emanate from performance styles but are not defined by them.
Some examples might be:
Transformation of object (or character or place)
Heightened use of language
Narration
Lazzi
Soliloquy
satire
Various collaborative processes and construction techniques
that are used in the realisation of ensemble performance:
Research Collect material such poems, cartoons, song lyrics,

pictures, and images, facts, opinions and questions and comments

relevant to the stimulus material.
Brainstorming Place the research findings in a random order in a
virtual or paper journal or on a sheet of paper and experiment with
ideas suggested by the material. Diagrammatically or visually,
represent the ideas that develop through use of charts or in a
cartoon format. Use visualisation techniques to imagine characters
that might be part of the drama, a dramatic moment or an aspect of
a scene.
Improvisation. Use techniques such as
role-play to explore possible threads in the story or narrative
trialling different ways of presenting a scene such as using only
words, only mime or gesture, symbolically or just using sounds
and movement

experimenting with different ways of ordering the material to

create meaning
experimenting with different performance styles and ways of
using and manipulating dramatic elements or conventions
personification, for example, physicalising objects or locations to
create transformations
hot-seating to explore aspects of a character.
Scripting. Documenting ideas, dramatic moments, scenes etc. as a
record of what has been accomplished. The script should include the
key ideas being explored and the intended shape of the drama, for
example on cards or in digital form.
Editing. Reviewing material developed through improvisation and
scripting and ordering or developing to build the dramatic form and
shape the narrative, apply a specific performance style or
convention, considering the transition from one scene to another or
the varied ways in which characters, places and objects can be
transformed, for example to condense ideas to intensify the
narrative through action rather than dialogue.
Rehearsing Blocking and running the work, trialling ways of
applying expressive and performance skills to present the ideas in
the drama with conviction, using props and/or set, establishing an
actoraudience relationship, communicating meaning, building
confidence as a performer.
Refining Seeking and implementing feedback, ensuring
performance meets requirements such as a time-limit or use of
transformations, dramatic elements, performance styles or
conventions; deepening communication of ideas by exaggerating
aspects of the performance, for example using heightened language,
symbols, gesture or movement.

This will be done through lectures, workshops and eventually a major

ensemble performance task. The broad theme for exploration is

The Brothers Grimm

in search of the modern
fairy tale
Outcome 2 Responding to Ensemble Performance
This is your recording, description and analysis of the practical
processes you go through.
Eg Everything listed above.
Your aim is to express your understanding of key terms and ideas, as
they relate to you the performer/director/designer.
You will keep a workbook that documents all aspects of the
performance processes, as requested by me.

Outcome 3 Analysing non-naturalistic Performance

This is your ability to express your understanding of the same key
terms and ideas, as they apply to productions prescribed by the
VCAA and at the Adelaide Festivals (mainstream and Fringe)
Where possible you will explore the play, through classwork, before
and after the theatre visit.
Your compulsory Professional Performance date is;
Melbourne Talam May 15th 2017 at Southbank Theatre,
The Lawler

Assessment
Outcome 1:
Satisfactory participation in practical workshops across the
semester, as an expression of knowledge and skills
prescribed.
SAC 3.1: An ensemble performance developed and staged
by the group(s), according to the prescribed structure The
Brothers Grimm in Search of the modern fairy tale
Outcome 2:
Satisfactory maintenance of a workbook detailing:
1. Evidence of note-taking and research in the
exploration of performance styles
2. a glossary of the key terms and definitions listed
above, defined by ongoing examples from practical
class work, your own and others performance work
3. Evidence of construction techniques for the
ensemble process
Progressive submission dates: term 1 week 5 & term 2 week 2.
SAC3.2 - The processes leading to your ensemble
performance (60-80 minute in-class writing task)
Outcome 3
Satisfactory contribution to discussions and the
maintenance of workbook notes for all class forums.
Completion of preparatory written work for
SAC3.3 - Analysis of prescribed play in performance 60
- 80 minute in-class writing task

OVERVIEW OF UNIT 3 &4 DRAMA

Unit 3 SACS worth 30%
Task
SAC 3.1 Ensemble performance
evening

Marks
80

date
Term 2 week 2

20
20

Term 2 Week 3
Term 2 Week 7

Unit 4 SACS worth 10%

Task
Mini Solo and short statement SAC

Marks
20

date
Term 1 week 1

Major Solo SAC

20

Term 3 week
10

SAC 3.2 Ensemble analysis

SAC 3.3 Performance analysis
Melbourne Talam

MAJOR SOLO PERFORMANCE EXAMINATION - 35%

We begin this in the last two weeks of Term 2. It takes up much of our
class time in Term 3, aside from written exam prep. The examination
date can be anywhere in the first 4 weeks of Term 4 (up to the day
before the English exam).
It is a 7 minute self-devised performance to external assessors based
on one of 10 12 characters and prescribed structures put together
by VCAA and published in April.
SOLO PERFORMANCE NIGHT - TBA
WRITTEN EXAMINATION - 25%
This is a three part examination that examines the skills and
knowledge of all outcomes. The sections are:
Performance analysis questions on Melbourne Talam
Ensemble performance creation questions related to the
development of ensemble material based on given stimulus
and applying your understanding of construction techniques,

performance styles and conventions, expressive and

performance skills, dramatic elements and stagecraft