secondary drama key stage 3 & 4

This pack is designed as a starting point for curriculum-based activities for Drama students at Key Stage 3 & 4, providing ideas for lessons inspired by Wicked.

WICKED staging

Warm Up

Balancing the room

Ask students to imagine how they position themselves in space relative to each other. As students to imagine the floor of the room is balancing on the tip of a pencil. To ensure they don’t lose the game, students must keep the whole room balanced, making sure that people are not clustered together, that they are always equally spaced out.

Teacher should call out “Freeze” every minute or so. Each time, examine the room – is it balanced?

Remind the students they shouldn’t walk in a circle and to keep moving at a decent pace.

Bomb and shield

Similar to the game above, students should space themselves out in the room and begin to move around the space, being careful not to walk in a circle. They should be aware of each other in the space.

Ask students to choose 1 other member of the class in their head, but not to let that person know they have been chosen. That person is the “bomb” – they want to keep as far away from them as possible.

After a minute or so of this, get students to choose another person. They are the shield. They should always try to keep their “shield” between them and the “bomb.”

2secondary drama

They should keep moving round the space always trying to keep their shield between them and their bomb. When you call freeze, ask some students who is the bomb and who is the shield. How well did they do?

Building a Picture

This exercise is designed to help students understand how staging and position on stage can help to tell a story and give characters status.

Split the class in half. One half sits down to watch the exercise.

Cast one of the students as Elphaba.

The group will create the following scene as a frozen image:

elphaba arrives at shiz University

One by one, the students enter the scene and assume a frozen position, and facial expression. Begin with Elphaba, then the students can enter when they want to and take up their position in relation to her. This exercise should happen in silence.

Once all students have entered the scene, ask the audience to analyse what they see. Where are the allegiances between the characters? Who has the status in the scene? How can we tell?

Who in the scene might be Glinda? Who might be Madame Morrible? Why?

Working in groups, repeat the exercise, creating the following frozen pictures:

the ozdust Ballroom dance Cast character: elphaba

dr dillamond is arrested Cast Character: dr dillamond

elphaba and glinda arrive in oz Cast character: glinda

glinda announces Her engagement Cast Character: Fiyero

extension exercises

• Ask students to add a line of speech into the scene – it should be about the character’s inner thoughts.

• Move the pictures around the room, giving directions like • Make the scene as small as you can • The whole classroom is your stage, use all of the space • Place the scene through a doorway, under a table, out in the corridorHow does the space change the feeling of the scene?

3secondary drama

Write a WICKED reVieW Use images from the Production image Pack

Set up the following exercise in your classroom before the students enter. Scatter images from the Production Images Pack around the room. Play music from Wicked as the students enter (a selection of tracks can be found on the Wicked website.) Students circulate the room and stand next to their favourite moment. Ask each student to explain the moment they have chosen, and what happens in it. They should think about why that moment captured them the most. Let this lead into a class discussion using the following questions as a guideline:

What do they remember about the play? What is their favourite moment in the play? How do the characters change? How does the music help to tell the story?

Students should write a review of the production. It may be useful for them to break this down into the following headings:

• Introductory synopsis: what happens in the play• Character analysis: who are the main characters, and how do they change over the course of the play. • Were the actors believable? What was their physicality like and did this help to tell the story?• Set Design & staging: what kind of set was it? What choices had the designer made? How did it help to transport the audience into the world of the play?• Costume Design: what choices has the designer made to help tell us both about the world of Oz, and the characteristics of the characters? How did it complement the set• Sound, Lighting & Technical Effects: How was this used to create atmosphere or add impact?• Music and Choreography: How does the music help to build the intensity of the climactic moments in the play? Do you remember anything about the choreography which helps to tell this story?• What were the most memorable or impactful moments? • What was the tone of the play? How did the writer and director want you to feel, and did they achieve it?

WICKED cHaracters

character analysis

4secondary drama

Choose one of the following characters: Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Madame Morrible or the Wizard.

In groups, ask students to draw a simple outline of the character on a large sheet of paper. Within the outline, write qualities which are internal qualities of the character, those which they might feel about themselves. Outside the outline, list how other people perceive them.

Share back their findings with the class. Does everyone agree with the analysis?

gesture

In the play, we see Glinda establish herself with a particular gesture: the dramatic tossing of her hair.

What does this gesture tell us about Glinda?

Individually, ask students to find a space in the room. They should choose one of the characters to become. Students should create a gesture which typifies how their character presents themselves to the world.

Walk around the room. When they meet another character, they should introduce themselves using only that gesture to do so, and receive a gesture back in return.

Now, ask students to create a gesture which communicates one of the inner qualities of their character, something which is not usually seen.

Repeat the exercise above with your 2nd gesture. How does this feel different?

Think about when the character might show themselves as one or the other – ask students to choose which gesture to use when they meet another character. How does it feel to expose that side of yourself to the other characters in the room?

Physicality

A gesture is a good way to for students to gain a sense of the overall physicality of the character. Ask one student to do their gesture then hold their pose. As a class, discuss the following:• Where is their eyeline?• Where is their centre of gravity (you may need to explain this)• Do they stand tall or bent?• Is their weight on one side of their body or another• Which parts of their bodies are tense, and which are not?• How are they holding their head?• How far apart are their feet?

5secondary drama

Working individually again, ask the students to do one of their gestures again. Talk them through each of those questions and get them to analyse their own character’s physicality and make choices in case they want to change anything. They should now begin walking around the room but maintaining their physicality. Their movement may feel like their whole body is becoming this other character.

Once they have a sense of how their character moves, they can introduce a word or phrase which they think their character would use. Moving around the room, they can meet other characters, using this phrase to interact with each other.

transformations

Each character in Wicked goes through quite a transformation throughout the play. In what way does your character change?

Identify 3 stages of the play which are meaningful to your character, for example: elphaba: day 1 at shiz, defying gravity, going into Hiding.

Students should title the 3 stages, as above. Now students should create a frozen pose of their character for each moment.

• Once you have the 3 poses, find a way to slowly transition between them so that we see a physical transformation of your character. Watch the transformations of each set of characters together, and, perhaps, perform to music. • What does the audience notice about the difference as the character changes? • How does this exercise help them to develop their character’s physicality?

Being Wicked

Explore stereotypes of what it is to be “wicked” witches.

Ask students to create still images of a “wicked” witch. What characteristics do they have, and how do you see these in their physicality?

Print out different examples of images or descriptions of other witches from popular culture. Examples might include those in Macbeth, The Wizard of Oz, Hocus Pocus, The Witches by Roald Dahl, Stardust. How are they portrayed?

Consider what makes Elphaba different to these characters. Start off with a still image of Elphaba at the beginning of the play and examine how Elphaba changes as she develops through the story. Using the examples given above (Elphaba: Day 1 at Shiz, Defying Gravity, Going into Hiding) look at how Elphaba develops through the play. Use a Thought-Tracking exercise to explore how Elphaba would be feeling at each stage of the play, and how this would differ from another more stereotypical ‘witch’.

ambitions

Each character in Wicked has a strong ambition or dream. This may change throughout the play. Choose one of your characters’ ambitions and imagine you are telling the audience about it. Write a monologue for your character which explains your ambition, why you want it, and how you are going to achieve it.

6secondary drama

character Profile

Using everything they have learned about their character to create a character profile.

WICKED scenesAlways start with a warm up to help establish their character. Using the Script Extracts Pack, students can work in groups to create the scenes.

Share back their scenes with the class, allowing students to feed back and evaluate each other’s performances.

improvisation

In pairs or small groups, create the following scenes which are “missing” from Wicked. Each scene should be about 2 minutes long. You an also add your own scenes into this list if you like.

• Elphaba tells her father she wants to go to Shiz University• Glinda and Elphaba move into their shared room• The Wizard appoints Madame Morrible as Press Secretary • Fiyero is appointed as head of the guards in Oz

Students may want to start scripting the scenes after initial development of work.

WICKED animaLs

Warm Up

Finding neutral

“Neutral” is a key position for an actor. It is the position from which actors can build a character. To build a physical character, students should first find their own neutral – a position which belies nothing about us as our own personalities. Talk students through finding their “neutral’ body position before beginning any of the following exercises.

animal Freeze

Students should walk round the room. Call out the name of different animals – students should immediately freeze in a pose of that animal. Repeat this with different, and more challenging animals.

Now call out an animal and a number. In groups of that number, students should work together to create 1 animal – for example – “Lion, 3” – students need to quickly get into a group of 3 and silently become 1 lion. It may help to count down from 3 or 5 to give them a set amount of time to become those animals.

7secondary drama

Passing a spell

Get the students into pairs. Each person in the pair is either a witch or a wizard. In pairs they should decide on 2 or 3 magic spells they want to cast which transforms the other person into an animal. Each different spell has a different effect, so the students need to concentrate on which spell is being said and what happens.

Each spell should transform their partner into an animal. Taking turns as a pair, one student casts the spell, and the other one acts out what’s happened to them.

Share back their spells with the class.

Becoming a monkey

This exercise is designed to get students thinking about using their own physicality to transform themselves into animals – it should also be quite a fun class exercise!

Think about the monkeys and how they are represented in the show. Look at the images of the moneys in the show. How are they depicted? Whilst the monkeys are definitely animals, they are human-like too, upright and life-sized human forms, with a heightened animalistic quality.

In order to become a different creature, students will need to analyse how the animals move and how it’s different from how we use our own bodies.

step 1: analysing images & videos

Close research, and crucially, watching, can be used in the development of any character, but is all the more important when you are creating creatures, as they are so different from ourselves.

Take a look at the following resources, and ask students to find some more themselves:

• Clips from nature documentaries such as natural World: clever monkeys with David Attenborough are available on youtube.• London Zoo have videos and images of the monkeys in their sanctuary on their website• san diego Zoo also has good insight on the life of monkeys on their website

In groups, note down the most important physical characteristics of their movements. In particular, think about: • The centre of gravity – is it low to the ground or high?• Where is their eyeline• Where do they lead from?• What is the range of their movement?• What is their pace? Is it slow / fast?• What do they sound like?

Share back thoughts as a class. Take note of these as the basis of the next exercise.

8secondary drama

step 2: on their Feet

Up on their feet as a class, ask the students to find neutral. Then they should begin to walk around the space. Call out different instructions to talk them into the monkey physicality based on their responses gathered above.

It may help to put on a soundtrack for this activity.

step 3: transforming

Once physicalities are established, ask students to explore transforming into their monkey characters from their neutral positions, and then back again. Play with the speed of this transition.

Split the class in half so that half are observing the monkeys in the room from the beginning of the transformation to full “monkey.” What does the audience notice about the physicality?

Lee strasberg used this kind of animal study exercise to help actors develop their human characters. How do the students think this kind of animal study could be used in creating character?

WICKED dance

class dance

Think about the scene where Elphaba comes into the Ozdust ball and dances. At first the rest of the guests at the dance ridicule her, but once Glinda joins in too, they start to copy her moves, so the whole room is dancing together.

As a class, you are going to recreate the scene, but using your own dance moves.

Stand in a space in the room where you can see each other (but not in a circle.)

9secondary drama

Link to the song, dancing through Life

As a class, take turns following 1 student’s dance move. Their dance move needs to be easy and repetitive so that other people can follow it for a few seconds. The teacher calls out different people’s names to lead the dance, when she does, everyone should look at that person and follow the dance that they do.

At the end of the dance, ask the class – did they prefer to be the leader or the follower?

group choreography

Link to the song, Popular

Working in groups, students are to choreograph a dance sequence to the song. Students should consider that, as with any musical, this song tells a story – it is characters who are dancing as part of the narrative, not simply dancers giving a show. Students may want to think about the lyrics of the song and the mood of the scene to help create their movement sequence.

Share back their dances with the class.

10secondary drama