Learning Goals
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to …
- Identify stage directions and locations onstage (stage left, stage right, upstage, downstage).
- Practice offering and accepting offers.
- Play with blocking and stage business.
- Experiment with endowment as a process of creating, describing, and animating a setting in detail.
Materials
- Blackboard or whiteboard
- Chalk or whiteboard markers
- A large open space
- PDF #1 Setting the Stage Observational Notes
- PDF #2 Setting the Stage Exit Ticket
- PDF #3 Theatre Terminology and Stage Locations - Student Worksheet
- PDF #4 Theatre Terminology and Stage Locations - Teacher Copy
Terminology
- Upstage: The Top of the stage that is furthest away from the audience.
- Downstage: The bottom of the stage that is closest to the audience.
- Centre Stage: The middle of the stage
- Stage Left: The performer’s left.
- Stage Right: The performer’s right.
Minds On
Whole Class > Upstage/Downstage!
In this game, students will learn about the different stage directions that actors and directors use in creating theatre. Review the terms Upstage, Downstage, Centre Stage, Stage Left, Stage Right, and their meanings. You can also combine these terms to be more specific (for example, upstage left, downstage right, centre left).
For accessibility, consider writing these definitions on the board. Review these definitions with students, taking them on a walk to each of the locations identified. Then, read each location aloud without the definition, and have students point to the location to check for understanding. Next, introduce the game Upstage/Downstage!
To play, you will call out different locations (Upstage! Downstage! Stage left! Stage right!), and students must get to those locations as fast as they can. If your students handle competition well, you can eliminate the last player to arrive at each location throughout the game. You can also give them other prompts to respond to in place:
- “Romeo and Juliet!” - Students pair up. One student kneels on one knee, and the other student sits atop their knee.
- “Hamlet!” - Students mime holding a skull up to the sky and exclaim, “Oh, poor Yorick!”
- “Curtain call!” - Students bow to the audience and exclaim, “Thank you, Mr. Olivier!”
- “Mime!” - Students mime as if they’re stuck in a box.
The game ends once there is a final player left (if you’re playing with elimination) or once you’re confident students are sufficiently warmed up for the remainder of the lesson.
Action
Whole Class > “What Are You Doing?”
Have everyone stand in a circle. In this game, one person in the circle will mime out an action of some kind, such as brushing their hair. The person next to them will ask, “What are you doing?”. The first person will not respond with what they’re actually doing, but with a different action, such as “making a sandwich”. The asker will then mime out the action that the first person offered them. Continue these steps, going around the circle until everyone has had a turn.
Whole Class > Endowment Mini-Lesson and Application
The two previous activities help equip students with some of the skills they will need to begin practicing endowment (a process from Improvisation that involves assigning qualities) to a character, a story, or a setting. In “What Are You Doing?” students endowed each other with an action. In this next activity, students will practice endowing the space to bring a fictional setting to life.
As a whole class, stand in a circle. Ask students to offer suggestions for a non-geographical setting (e.g., a library, a co-working space, a playground). If students are comfortable contributing popcorn-style, invite them to endow the space through verbal description. As one student verbally describes something about the space or the characters in it, encourage other students to jump in and use their bodies, facial expressions, and movements to bring their description to life. The student offering a description should participate in this step as well. (For example, if one student describes “In this library, we see an adult reading to a group of young children,” then other students from the circle would jump into the scene and mime the adult reading to kids.) Students can also serve as objects in the space. Continue the endowment until all students have taken a position in the scene.
Time permitting, repeat this activity with a new location.
Consolidation
Whole Class > Consolidating Discussion
Debrief the learning from the lesson.
Questions for Discussion:
- Why might it be important to understand different locations onstage?
- Can you think of examples of when actors might perform in the downstage area? Upstage? What might be the purpose of the action happening at upstage left or right?
- In both “What Are You Doing?” and our endowment exercise, we practiced giving and receiving offers from our fellow performers. Why might practicing giving and receiving offers onstage help us grow as performers?
Assessment for Learning (AfL)
- Take note of how students understood stage directions and locations onstage: could students identify the directions you gave them during Upstage/Downstage?
- Take note of students who jumped right into the learning activities today, as well as students who may have struggled or been hesitant: did any students struggle to give or receive an offer? Did students seem to have an understanding of locations onstage following the first activity? Notice how students offered both verbal and embodied descriptions of the offers during the endowment activity: could they clearly express their ideas verbally and through performance?
- PDF #1 Setting the Stage Observational Notes Template
Option: Collect and review PDF #3 Theatre Terminology and Stage Locations - Student Worksheet
Assessment as Learning (AaL)
- PDF #2 Setting the Stage Exit Ticket
