Phase: | During/Explore/Explain |
Activity: | Students will stand facing the "director" with at least one arms' length in front of and beside each student. Ask each student to imagine that they are standing on their own small private stage. [Students may stand on posterboard to represent their personal stage.] If you have a tiled floor, they should imagine that the square they are standing in is CENTER stage. The square in front of them is DOWNSTAGE CENTER. The square behind them is UPSTAGE CENTER. And so on. The "director" will call out commands such as Cross Downstage Center, Cross Upstage Left, etc. Students ONLY follow the command if the director says, "Simon Says..." [Simon says cross Downstage Right, Simon says cross Upstage Right, now cross back to Center Stage, etc.] If a student moves when the director does NOT say Simon Says, they sit in their spot. If a student steps in the wrong direction, they sit in their spot. Continue until only one student is standing. |
Assessment Strategies: | Observe students during the activity to do quick assessments of their understanding. After the activity, give a written quiz: Have students draw a square on a sheet of paper, then draw a tic-tac-toe board inside it, creating nine areas. Tell them to write the word audience below the square to indicate the actor's orientation. (You may ask them to draw the audience beside or above or tell them to write the audience wherever they choose, depending on how challenging you want the quiz to be.) Ask them to label the nine areas using stage direction abbreviations C, DC, UC, DR, etc. OR Ask them to write their NAME center stage, draw a HEART DR, draw a STAR DC, write the name of their favorite TV show UR, etc. |
Advanced Preparation: | Teach them the stage directions using this diagram. Remind them that stage directions are for the actor's use, not the audience's. The audience can live the rest of their lives never knowing where Stage Left is, but the actor cannot function without knowing. Therefore, Stage Left is the actor's left, and Stage Right is the actor's right. Explain to them that Downstage and Upstage are terms that were created because some older stages were built "on a rake" or a slight incline. The front part of the stage, closest to the audience, was slightly lower, or downstage, and the back part was slightly higher, or upstage so that the audience could see things that were farther away. |
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