Follow-up materials 2013St. Paul's Girls' School

NISDA CONFERENCE 2013 - St. Paul's Girls' School

Follow-up materials

Practitioner Workshops- thanks to all our contributors - especially Vivienne Penglase

Games Exchange- thanks to all our contributors

Question Time Panelist Biographies

Question Time Transcript - painstakingly prepared by Izzy Foley

2

PRACTITIONER WORKSHOPS

Ad Infinitum Warm up

Run - now sheep - run with energy - run filling the gaps - purpose - now with no Apology - now no grunt of contact - now antennae sensing others and graceful movement avoiding and ducking and diving - nearly there anywayStop now = freeze and inspect the space

Now as freeze fill the space - not just legs but arms as well find a way - stop code of times and show good poses - ground middle and upper space open and closed postures full rather than half- think about presence fill this space from strong dynamic core and character charisma

Walk and make eye contact - jog and meet - hello, converse keeping the energy and then part - make the meeting matter but keep the energy like a hot potato- all have responsibility - all have responsibility to keep energy going someone outside think this is exciting - now find an ending – clap

Play as audience don’t want to clap too early also not want it to drag on…Stretched. Slowly rotate as then feel muscles too fast and can damage.

3

Commedia Didi Hopkins

Mouse nose: As soon as put something on face invite audience to look they know you know you a playing

Pretending playing game - weep demonstrated look at audience to share and back to weeping

No lies but lot of artifice - pay it with 4th wall and then bring it out to the audience = lazzi (physical or verbal business)

‘Romeo Romeo’ straight to self......then Direct Address ‘he's always late’Enjoy Not arch. Not pantomime commedia is about the real emotion the tragedy of Shakespeare and the comedy

Servant master is central relationship - boss and worker line between keeps the balance Baldrick – Blackadder, Fawlty Towers Into duo comes third dynamic – woman (rich man bad sex or poor man good sex) or second servant or master. Often she is a peasant whose work way up to run house or courtesan decide not to marry so she can stay6 in the world. Then marriage = put women behind closed doors

TroupeMaster - servantCentral to all

MastersTop – Head – MagnificoMiddle –Shoulders – aristocrats& children InamoratiStomach – professionals: Pantalone/DoctoreServantsHips – Brighella master of servants/servant of mastersHips - HarlequinPunchBottom –Feet - Zanni

Atoms diagram what do you see?- family tree - social strata

Top - CrownMiddle - Shoulders aristocratsBottom - Feet

Characters

Magnifico king, doge, spoken about rarely seen, move slow, big brainTop - Crown 9Aristocrats grace and in shoulders – goldfish bowls on shoulders graceful gesturing arms0

Make the shapes - Shape in body brings the behaviour

Giraffe long strong spine and head full of idea walk. Can go fast in this posture, How feel? confident, proud, Move then still move then still - hung pictures

Magnifico 3-5 steps stop plant feet, look, decide to move, walk, find the voice, big low strong,

4

Ideas - ah all those lights all on me–move, stop, idea - ah those chairs move them to France. Ideas = Absurd and big

Zanni (servants) have to make it happen he just brain not have to do it.....

Liberate your sound- bring me the ceiling- whole body move with sound how feel.....Magnifico mask evil, eagle, high, above all like god, above all

Zanni = John 400 of different types

Wrinkle mask - walk forward carrying a tray - add a judder, really stupid - or stutter. Could be a lawyer….Take the shape of the mask naturally as you put it on. It's why getting the shapes right is important.

Zanni - Nose mask, Bird like Zanni are light on feet, toes, peasant come in from the country, simple, curiousWalk like a bird jerky or light add voice how feel? as light, open,

Complete contrast

One person play both and enjoy - order by Magnifico and then Zanni response move between.2 person scene devising already big ideas pairs devise and reverse.Zanni – actors like penguins move in own but similar way

Also Could be Zanni heavier or stupider or more violent e.g. Punch

When you lead with a body part…. A type emerges.

Brighella master of servants and servant of masters like John Cleese cunning, able ambitious, limited

Harlequin/Arlequin– is a stupid servant. Finger on hips, smile, fun,wiggle side to side, loose happy hips, footsteps and hold it, move, and sound

Brighella tight hips, notice how change breathingBack to A loose hips–.. Brighella tight control works so hard his feet hurt – walk like this

Harlequin’s master is often Pantalone shape of Magnifico but with strings cut, so shoulders sink down and forward, hunched– Steptoe or Mr Burns from Simpsons

Key feature = he covets –I love this pillar no-one is going to have it, used to be in my house, mean, miser – move around coveting and keeping this for yourself

5

Make stage by string ribbon:

Pair improvise Harlequin and Pantalone1. Harlequin come to front of stage and present self = first thing in a Commedia scene is

actor presents selfHarlequin come on present self to audiencePantalone come on to tell us what happen that day.....Harlequin as soon as someone on is exciting – he’s interested

2. Freeze look at us slowly, look at each other slowly, open mouths wide, look fast at us, then each other, jump, approach each slowly and stop, look at us slowly, what happens next?

Techs: Freeze – Fast, slow – look at each other, look at audience

Look each side of each other, laugh, weep, be scared, be excited, be excited about us, in love with someone in the aud....

Be: Surprised by everything in the room, confused by everything in the room, be angry at everything in the room, look at each other, make fists, check with us how beautiful you are, 2 quick steps and stop, look at us, fight air, fight, sky, show us your muscles, go to shake hands, stop, take hand away, yuk

Liberating, pace. See feeling in body. Brecht said see story – through glass. Look at audience

Pantalone is Master of commerce and money – dried up, wizened

Contrast same status different demeanour:Doctor from Bologna, not medical, eat lots of Bolognese, speak a lot, waffles, stomach out, he = oil, were P is vinegar &hunched shoulders this opens out opposite, oil oozes ebullience, and so much to say, belly, flexible looseness, waffle and hot airPunctuated as he stops take in air, talk about anything and nothingMaster of intellect, academic, writs and lawyer phrases, Latin, empty phrases

Move between the 2 Pantalone and Doctore the bourgeoisie middle professional classes stomach/hips

Aristocrats - gliding goldfish 2 bowls of goldfish on your shoulders, hold and glide, arms floating, grandeur, toes, breather show off, I’m so beautiful, vain, posturing - good position to be seen in, I'm showing you I own all be land but I might need you,....how feel? glam sophisticated, superior, noble, slightly pretentious, ….Romeo and Juliet’s parentsShape shoulders and person comes to be.

Lovers = white make up player by first actress

6

Put each next to each other contrast and a world – pairs servant and master…..improvise – reverse.

Captain Spanish, medallion man, show off but not like to fight, arm up and sword, fencing pose, boasts, feather in cap, walks through a ladder, knees up, brandish sword, first sign of danger becomes like a Zanni, can have a servant, but he's an outsider, people can fall in love with him

Fun each actor creates each in their own way ingredients to make a cake take on the rules then make your own.

Colombina female servant. Hands on hips, shows off woman lines, knows it all, cf Harlequin thumbs in belt

Middle of chart as centre of the universe, talks directly to audiences, what do you think of him? I bet you’re wondering how many masters I've had, she is the link between then all, knows

Witches = Female Magnifico of the country side - Nurse in R&J good witch but again outsider, society perceive her as they want

Romeo and Juliet: Children and mother - child is double speed and half-length of pace, half volume and double pitch voice as little mini-mes of the aristocrats – comic mimicry. OH come here darling and meet… yes mummy but….

Activity: Any servant and master –scenario: Magician and assistant do trick but goes wrong. Tom & Jerry, Itchy and ScratchyEach come on and introduce then invent. Do trick, go wrong.

Once got shape of characters you’ve got a scene as soon as given plot e.g. what carrying is important and valuable – then you know how to act.

Laying of the stage is important. Off stage on stage shown.9 hotspots on stage.Enter same side or opposite (what’s the difference?)......If entering empty space, how do you fill it? If dribble on stage you’ve wasted energy and long, you need to enter with clarity and be.As on stage immediate picture of character.....Still image.

Magician and tricks central to Commedia. Keep looking at audience...Simon Cowell to be impressed....pictures in space.

Look at us before you go.

Win us over. Only essential words....

Improvised not from words.... Naturally tell the story.

7

What worked: Essence and energy of character consistent and sustained.Centre stage and look at audience. Compelling for an audience. Eye contact.Engaging with each other

Magic and trick relationship with audience is key....it is for the audience, work with the audience,

When working - feel the rhythm of the joke, if work do it again, repeat and again bigger and bigger

As activity add in: freeze, look at audience, Slow motion, sound effect, only essential words,

Story master or mistress and servantScene 1: master receive letter, think it’s good news, excited read it, it's bad news, upset do something to get rid of it, don't know what to do, get bright idea, call servant, want servant to take these pickled walnuts, a delicacy, to woman over the hill.Scene 2 servant takes walnuts on journeys gets hungry - driving force hunger, money and sex – eats just one, then another, then just 1 more….realise its empty, what to do?, hide evidence, decided to lie,Sc3. lies master did you deliver walnuts, servant yes (aside to audience it's going we'll)M did you watch her? Servant elaborate yes with prince and everything Magnifico upset he didn’t have such lovely walnuts, did they finish the walnuts? Yes Master starts raging/crying, servant what's matter? The walnuts were poisoned and soon their eyes pop out .....servants eyes pop out....and fingernails drop off etcDilemma is does the master give the antidote so all the action then goes in reverse and save the servant, or doesn't care and get another servant

A tells B the story not exact just tell as heard then B tells the story again their own way. Then tell it together

1. Walk it through doing the actions –just movement& silent2. Do it in grummalot3. Play it in English to an audience4. Hand clap move between grummalot and English5. Action only, silent, live it for yourself

Grummalot gives space for emotions to show back in the body, need own tongue, emotional vocabulary.

8

Lyndsey Turner

Instant acting – Improbable Theatre, developed by Jeremy Whelan

Focus: Quality of acting we can get from our students

Tendencies – problems in the class roomBuilding ensemble self consciousnessThem understanding Everything on stage is read – clarity – too much shuffling and flapping of armsTruth and big conflictsRange of meaning in lineLots of emotingTheir own relationship with their body is changing and unpredictable for themBittiness of time to work inInhabiting body and movement needed in drama is opposite to stillness required in other subjects.We ask creativity and risks which rest of day is following rules90% of their time spent working out right/wrong then drama says no right answers!

Purpose: Straight into acting, de intellectualise, and not faffing. Way of getting stuck into scriptsInstant acting Jeremy Whelan and variants

A recording device that plays back. Pro tools, GarageBand, phone and speakers.

"Contractions" by Mike Bartlett Rules - take a script black out stage directionsStage directions means "something happens here" e.g. David Hare "Stop doing my stage directions”

1. Sound check first five lines

2. First recording. Just read words in right order slowly, mistakes are beautiful, just follow script, can cough, no acting, no rushing, just say the words, stumbles are fine, it’s fine if you don't understand anything just read it, not acting it.

Chose this scene as nothing happens, everything happens, but… 3. Remove mic and chairs, use the space to walking exercise, put scripts down, get

over the script....listen to scene back, let it affect you, allow yourself to think about or feel what the character might be feeling. Can use 3 types of movt

* forward - impelled, moved towards* away from someone - repelled, backing away, * Still- compelled

9

Not literal movt., e.g. giving the contract is literal, in this exercise don't think or interpret, just let yourself feel are you drawn towards, still or repelled? Be brave. Listen and respond. Go with it.

4. Audience. We observe and look for moments where intuitively they are changing. From moving forward to still or backing off. Audience/teacher annotate script. Greatest hits, the best 3 movements: phase 1 little steps, sweep to corner,

backing her into corner, - hello. phase 2 long bit of no moving, stillness - contract. Phase 3 he back off the big cross across the floor, and she follow - why are you asking about this? Phase 4 separate - goodbye now

Audience. Before interpretation ask them just to say what they see: big walk, little walk, turn her head, micro movements? Foot up, play with skirt, forensically annotate behaviour and reflect it back to the actors

e.g. You did a lot of twisting your hands, turned your foot on this word, fidget on this line….so, at the moment we are observing real life, true discoveries, harvesting real life and responses, mining natural physical expression….

Could Try exercise seated and annotate word when foot go up.

5. This was a First pressing – rule = never use same recording twice. Make a second recording starting from ‘Emma?’ P2 again not ‘acting’ just reading but by reading and moving you've been learning, do it now with what you've learnt or want to try out, try it.

6. Audience notice: what's happening? - creepy, different

This method helps you play and try out new tones. Focus on tone and vocal separate from physical.

7. Again listening to this second reading walk scene out and see what lower body wants to do. This time keep being bold, if wedged somewhere turn and go back. Start on opposite sides from before and away from each other. (Last time He centre stage and she enter. This different to explore other dynamics.)

8. Audience can now Look at it using Stanislavski Language events, motivation, action, now big changes of intention look at architecture of the scene, beat, change, maximum events for all on stage.

You have ended up walking out the core of the scene. Pursue and retreat....what is it. Did you see any change on page 2.

Still focus on the physical compare to previous version, give observations, refer to annotations on script, and questions to class: e.g. On the word….she started on walk, her head down, which hand was twitching?, I liked his hand twitching behind his back, any change from page 3 last time? her head turned away, do we remember which bit, on saying contract, something major happened on "" what was it?, more contact, big change I saw you started to do the walking, where was the first change on page 4? I thought it was on the ‘no’ from my perspective. He walking away not on the straight sideways walk, so what we know is something really important is going on there; what do you think it is? There is some kind of truth there, where else did you see change?, he stopped dead on......but she didn't back

10

up, an amazing thing happened on ‘okay’ her leg collapsed a release of something there, he walked away on' is there anything?’....so she marooned.

Get them body watching harvesting up these behaviours, get their eye in of what life is made up on, twitches and leg caves and tells, they need to see and read and observe and understand the truth.

9. Next phase could be: Then sit with actors and work out intentions and units, these are events, go off actors impulses. Decided units quickly by movt. they’ve done.

OR keep doing versions – alternating new recordings and walk outs with different parameters.

Audience could be placed 360 in the round - Need you to tell me what these behaviours as all have different perspectives - half watch Emma and the other half the manager. Different foci.

10. Record again - Make suggestions to actors to perform in different way, name the walk, walking towards is plucking up courage and away is bottling it, towards is nearer the secret and away is further away from the secret.

11. Record again - all class in pairs do mirror exercise, slow motion to get in grove with each other…then mirror as listen to the recording, when your character speak you lead, again focus is the 3 movements lower body but observe other stuff all

12. Record again - Next version when your character speak other person leads13. Record again - next version no leading. Choreography happens....dancing the

scene14. Record again –Director pause at moments and let the actors be in it. What is it

lie? to be paused in that moment?.....either still or movements, something in that moment take time for them to get imagining....always imagining in this techniques and that helps with memory and creativity....pauses can be nudges to go deeper into moments.

15. Record again - Fake up set and props means only what’s necessary gets used. Not a false move in it. All choices work and purposeful.

16. 7th time they will be off book

Can do the technique with an ensemble:e.g. Court room scene Crucible. ......find energy flow, character.Toes to tape when in control or away when terrified.That end believes John the other s disbelief....gets actors imagine individually while being an ensemble.

Explores: How scene function, he peruse, you hide, then she assert self, and get bafflement then part? But found physically and from the beginning.

2 or 3 rounds of this to open choices.

11

Now character work. What 10 things do you want to know about each character? Judgement is not helpful as leads to caricature.

Director call each version a Draft - if you want to bring things back can say I liked it in draft 4 where you ……I liked this from what I saw in the exercises. Draw up blocking and direction from the work produced by the exercises with the cast, editing together the best bits.

Thanks to Vivienne Penglase for summarising this workshop

One and a half hours in St Paul’s Girls’ School’s well-equipped Singing Hall with Lyndsey Turner, a microphone, a computer and the opening scene of Mike Barlett’s Contractions was ninety minutes that will inform my teaching and extra-curricular practice. I have been fortunate enough to have Lyndsey visit both my current and previous schools and her up-to-the-minute theatrical knowledge engages students and allows me to use directing techniques that reflect the industry when working on shows.

The practical guide she shared with NISDA was a version of Jeremy Whelan’s instant acting technique. This involves recording the lines of scene in one take, without acting and without looking at the other actors. This recording is then used to explore one exercise before deletion and re-recording for the next exercise. This may well be similar to other things we all do already but the rigour of the exercises and the order have been found useful by Jeremy Whelan, Philem McDermott (at Improbable) and, obviously, Lyndsey (whose “Chimerica” is receiving fantastic reviews at the time of writing, at the Almeida). The first exercise involves being impelled, repelled, or compelled to go towards, go away from or remain rooted in relation to fellow actors. Another grows into performing a mirroring exercise directed by the actor speaking their lines (and therefore leading the scene to some extent). An interesting twist is getting a student to pause another recording during this work, allowing the actors to consider the lines in a deeper way. This “smuggles” direction into the scene and allows actors to more deliberately consider their intentions as they stand and reflect on the “event” that the pause reflects.

All this is a lightning-fast précis of a far more detailed workshop. Admittedly it did involve people sitting and watching and some would have preferred a more active role in the creation of the work but it did accurately let us see the process and allowed us to observe the improvement of the scene as outside eyes. It was a great link between the more cerebral naturalistic process work that governs our major theatres and a physical approach that can sometimes more aptly recognise our need to get students up and moving. Certainly I will pay more attention to the lower half of the acting body and it’s great to have something so clear to be able to utilise in future.

Thanks to Phil King for his notes

12

Keith OrtonDesign

Keith Orton has over twenty years' experience both as a tutor of design at Central School of Speech and Drama and as a professional theatre designer. His workshop was pitched just right to offer something of value to both those who regularly design for their school productions and to those for whom design is an area viewed with some trepidation. The session began with each of us 'free drawing' on a blank sheet of paper in response to a series of emotions - anger, joy, energy, confusion. We then formed a circle, Keith placed a chair in the centre and we discussed the possibilities of what the position of that chair could convey to an audience. What if it lay on its side? What if a coffee cup or a discarded shoe were also part of this stage set? Keith's engaging and friendly manner set the group at ease as we returned to our workbenches. His preparation was meticulous; each of us had a strip of cardboard printed with a series of silhouettes in various poses, a scale ruler and some cardboard squares that could be glued together to form a little cube. Keith asked us to choose a silhouette that connected with one of the emotions we had drawn earlier, cut it out and mount it. This figure became the 'character' on our emerging stage set. A cube was made and positioned in relation to the figure, aspects of the initial emotion drawing were added to the overall picture and in just over an hour each of us had produced the beginnings of a model set.

Keith was very approachable, assisting each of us individually and he opened up an accessible, step-by-step approach to design that inspired confidence (even in those of us who are strangers to the craft knife) and could be easily transferred to the classroom.

Thanks to Valerie Alderson for her notes on this workshop

13

Gemma Brockis

SHUNT

Gemma Brockis, a founding member of Shunt reconnected us to the fundamental play and creativity that lies at the heart of theatre. Based for the workshops in the powerfully evocative setting of the library we first explored the practice of generating a relationship with space as a stimulus for theatrical invention, the question that companies like Shunt ask themselves about the potentialities for space, spectator and performer. We explored the possible narrative uses of the space as a literal library but also as a more abstract environment for an exploration of authority and fear, silence and intellectual freedom.

Before long we were on our feet and working in groups to set up a short piece in which the audience would be invited by three group members into the second space through the library's large room before seeing a single performer who would change an aspect of the scene on their arrival. The results were startlingly simple but profoundly effective as theatre, combining the atmosphere of the space with surreal and surprising experiences. In one we were witness to what appeared to be a religious ceremony in the first room whilst hearing the desperate sobs of a female in the next - not words, no narrative except that which we were investing in the experience. On arrival in the far room we faced a member of the group sitting on the floor, with tables and chairs spread out around as if a violent attack had occurred. She stared at us and forced the door closed as if she were confiding in us and the piece ended.

The experience reminded me of the times as a child we would devise experiences for family and friends - setting up a room and usually attempting to scare them as if they had entered a haunted house. I remember the excitement of the experience, the anticipation of something happening and the euphoria when our audience suspended their disbelief in physical ways as well as intellectual ones. This work rekindled similar feelings in other group members - the fundamental adventure of turning everyday spaces into special locations, happenings even.

This continual consideration of the audience's experience is of course fundamental to this theatre form, and refreshingly it reminds us who theatre is ultimately for and what its potential is for providing unique and unforgettable experiences. I found myself questioning the conventions of theatre spaces with their varied flexible yet fundamentally distancing seating arrangements. I was struck by the lack of authenticity to these theatrical experiences whilst becoming newly energised by the possibilities for the curious spaces around my school and local area.

With several more practical exercises we were immediately motivated to produce more experiences for our audience and just as importantly we playfully opened up the incredible potential for this form for each participant in the workshop.

Gemma Brockis provided an outstanding end to my day, perhaps reconnecting me more than many other workshops have done about with the fundamentals of theatre and our relationships with spaces and our audiences. This write-up was prepared by Mike Perry

14

Jonathan Keeble A Playful exploration of Vocal Skill

Jonathan’s workshop was a brilliant exploration of the work of the voice actor. He started by reminding us of the history of radio drama, from its earliest beginnings as the only form of broadcast media, through to its many manifestations today in advertising, animation, film and television. Jonathan works in all of these and has developed an extraordinary vocal versatility, ranging from the unmistakeable ‘ thunder voice’ of the guttural American film trailer virtuoso, Don LaFontaine, to the gentle Yorkshire tones of Alan Bennett. We were reminded of the evocative power of voice that famously led one child to say that she preferred radio ‘because the pictures are better.’ I found myself reflecting on the infamous Orson Welles ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast that had caused mass-panic in 1938 America and Artaud’s banned radio broadcast ‘To Have Done with the Judgement of God’ in 1947, which would have brought the Theatre of Cruelty (some say in its most successful form) to an audience of millions. As with Rita’s ‘Peer Gynt’, the radio is certainly one solution to the difficulties of staging.

Jonathan gave us excellent advice about volume, tone, pitch and tempo when performing voice work and encouraged us to physicalise the words when delivering them, if that was our natural instinct. He explained how smiling emerged as an audible warmth in the voice, a phenomenon he had incorporated to make his own voice less stern, or didactic, when appropriate. We learned about microphone technique, the function of the pop-shield and how to hold the scripts in the correct place to position the mouth effectively for the microphone. Delegates took it in turns to deliver short, genuine voice-over scripts. It was fascinating to watch the usually ‘invisible’ performance of audio material, from a pleasantly erotic advert for a programme about Ibiza, to an absurdly, politically incorrect advert for Gordon’s Gin. The latter described the obligation of the woman in a certain culture to wash their men’s feet and then to drink the dirty water as a sign of respect. The punch line is ‘Personally, I prefer a gin and tonic’, which was delivered with such cool, dignified disdain that it caused convulsions of admiration and appalled laughter.

Following Jonathan’s expert and detailed critique of each first attempt, we recorded our scripts for the second time. For the majority, his comments had radically changed the quality and impact of the delivery, most often through the development of contrasting tone, pace and emphasis. We all became more aware of the intricate interplay of factors affecting voice work and we started to listen more deeply, rather than to watch the ‘performances.’ Jonathan closed his eyes and inclined his head downwards for each new voice, excluding the visual sense completely. This was a good reminder that much can be gained in an ‘ordinary’ theatrical context by encouraging students to concentrate on voice alone, either in darkness, or with a cast in an outward facing circle, where the other sign systems are shut down.

15

Jonathan then took us into the studio, where the excellent Ian and his Pro-Tools enabled us to listen back to the recording of our voice-overs one-by-one. In this exercise we could clearly hear the improvement that Jonathan’s comments had made, except in two instances where he was the first to point out that the first ‘take’ was the best.

The session concluded with useful reflection on the entire process and Jonathan’s advice for colleagues and students on how to get work in voice acting. This requires the assembly of a show-reel on CD that can then be mailed out or dropped into likely sources of work. Jonathan can talk to you about facilitating this professionally if you contact him.

This was an excellent, brilliantly managed workshop. I had not anticipated that so much could be achieved with a group of twelve in so short a time. It taught us all a great deal, not only about the particular art of the voice acting, and the career opportunities that it can offer our students, but he also reminded us of the extraordinary power of the voice for us as a species and as performance- making entities.

Thanks to Stephen Pritchard for writing these notes

16

Complicite

Tim McMullan provided a very useful insight into the practical approaches of the company, which demonstrated the lengthy 'playful' phases that begin any project, and occupy a considerable part of normal working days. Throughout his workshop there was a sense of needing to commit fully to the physical transformative process, the removal of inhibitions which would reach extremes prior to be reduced down within the context of any particular project.

We started playing a simple name game in which you had to remember the name of the person to your right, then two to your right, then three.

Walking exercises in which we would fill the space and then walk in pairs, 3s, 5s and even 7s ensuring there was a smooth movement into position, conscious of those around you and walking with an even, unhurried pace

In pairs - one blind the other providing a hummed soundtrack -a well known song that the blind person must 'follow' around the room. Guide to ensure blind partner does not injure themselves. experiment with distance, volume and proximity to the blind person. Group leader silences specific pairings and in so doing stops the blind person's movement - lovely trust exercise

walking in line behind the workshop leader who would create interesting patterns , spirals and crossings which demanded an even pace and good timing (especially when crossing the other line)

Encounters - group split in half with a long diagonal walk across the space towards an individual from the other group - meeting in the middle with an ever increased intensity and energy level - onto toes and then almost dance-like and more and more humorous. A lifting breath prior to starting the walk - both moving at the same time - lots of eye contact.

Increasing size of groups walking across the room - starting to move without prior arrangement or any signal. When is the best time to move? thinking as a group with one intention.

The Elements (Complicite use abstract elements as a direct means of exploring core physicality and simple context free explorative environments). We explored WIND- imagining a simple cool breeze gently blowing against our faces before allowing the wind to push us with ever increasing intensity until we were subject to its complete control, lifting, twisting, turning and moving around the space. This increasingly turbulent progression with half the group in observer mode ensures the value and impact of such experiments can be shared and identified by others in the room. The second group explored another approach from dreaming about the WIND to allowing it to instil joy and lightness of movement prior to other group members being invited to sit and be in much closer contact with the active participants.

17

The workshop ended with a discussion about the way in which some of the elements were incorporated into previous Complicite productions.

18

Propeller – Shakespeare as an ensemble

Story telling2 teams – each with a different Shakespeare play1 person narrate rest act it 2 minutes Same play good stuff sticks and rest Pressure on narrator, liberates actorSubsequent versions add in requirement: Grab instruments and audience underscoreLevelsCostume

Comedy of errors - voice

Antipholus soliloquy but propeller uses choric device to create freedom, all characters on stage e.g. fairies, soldiers, orderlies, mariachi band to embellish the story.

1st week. Work through scene changes...who plays what instrument?....how link and change....scene changes focus first.

Then as Radio playRead it ...what suggestion for ensemble to do at the end of the line? Do what he saysShape meaning to end of line or pair of linesDo it 'Friend' bosh.....rhythm in language tees up reaction.How long? Short snapDrum roll start...quick drum.He laugh at response .....keep it. Reactions to the lines, shouldn't get in the way of the rhythm or speaking.

Go for it then tighten it up.

‘Friend’ - yeah‘Name’ –“Antipholus?” one or all try both....make specific for change and developmentComic rule of three 1 single voice, boys locker room, girls seductiveIn that space when relate to audience ....his bewilderment....and then liking it.Money, Invite,

Movt and compete for his attention.Antipholus come from centre back stage and impro it

Radio playNeed to sfx money tambourine throne, thanks mwa kissed....decide some noises…but not in the way of the rhythm if the verse.Needs to be sharper to make: Money, invite later, thanks mwa

19

If have sellers, have fun as long as slick and short, non-naturalistic, ‘lovely oranges’.Different time signatures thus was flash back and now happening......

Improvise then find the rhythm to keep the beats....

Audition the sounds and run what we got so far.Next line...run with timing....Options, in to him or vanishing at end or grandmother footsteps

Important thing is precision....no talking is it telling the story is it too much?

Even if cut it release way of liberating language and action....creating pictures for each line. Ensemble shared idea and understanding of the world.

They know my name is v dry different...play the positive....fun.....play the positive stops it getting heavy keeps life and makes the serious moments more intense.

Henry chorus choric approach

Chorus bunch of squaddies

Each have a line....learn to find the excitement and the narrative drama of this scene...listen and build on Let’s hear how we as a groupDistribute linesFootball clap twice end with stamp.Listen to others and give you the impetus are you agreeing, embellishing, contradicting,

What hear, need to pick up from each other and drive through to end of line or full stop. Verse speaking and driving to the end of the line

No such thing as character, play the situation and character will emerge. The situation is the text and your character is the length of thought

e.g. opening of Twelfth Night

If – if what?,If music – if music what?If music be – if music be what?If music be the – if music be the what?Etc.If music be the food of love play on....keep going

Play the line and the thought.

Way of rehearsing.

20

Squaddies arrive exhausted and worn out and despondent, find the crown, start hoping but dispirited, then think yes we can do this, end with clap.

After rehearsals tell the story in 2 minutes – see the difference and development

21

GAMES EXCHANGE

Summary by Vivienne PenglaseBuilding shed – mime, each enter as a character. What are you doing – I’m building a

shed – can I help you? - yes2. Matthew to John, John to 3, 3 to Mark: King, queen, manager, worker, teas p maker3. Walking across the circle. 1,2 a,b, twinkle4. Word association: Categories things you can buy at things you can't buy at, whole

numbers less than 5' songs on my iPod5. Word disassociation6. Shop run into centre grab the object – if get wrong change shop7. Jumpin 8 - FA8. Jumping singly, pairs, trios….9. Clap circle: Stand in circle hands to hands circle. Clap own and outside, change no of

clap own hands10. Wizards, giants, goblins, We all live in the land of cabish cabosh ....result: teehee

mutter mutter11. Chairs toilet she must suffer - knees together, can't return to own chair – we move

chairs to stop her getting to it – knees together12. Zip, zap boing, eastender, Harry potter, dr who, y1013. 123 chair - change sit, stand ground

Whose line is it anyway leaning, standing, sitting impro....if 1 change others adapt14. Invent own old people's home

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kabish Kabosh - contributed by Nano Nagle

Divide the group into 2 and choose someone from each group to be the 1st general.Explain that we all live in the land of Kabish Kabosh and we revere the Queen/King.Have them stand in 2 straight lines facing each other and go through the rules for The Challenge.Wizards beat Giants, Giants beat Goblins, Goblins beat Wizards (you can make up any creatures but you must have large physical actions for each of them)Then each group gets into a huddle and the 1st general chooses what they are going to be.All stand in a line facing each other and the Queen walks in and they sigh aaah.Then tell them to puff out their chests and eye each other up before all chantingWE LIVE IN THE LAND OF KABISH KABOSHKABISH KABOSH< KABISH KABOSHThen the Queen says "Declare yourselves" and they show their creature actions.Whoever wins calls TeeHee TeeHeeWhoever loses calls Mutter Mutter MutterThe winners then choose one of the losers as their reward.Then the Queen chooses a 2nd general etc.....

22

I work with small children so bringing a story into it as much as possible helps with control. I find this works with older kids too but we have creatures like zombies, nerds and vampires.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wavelengths and Slap Cannon extension contributed by Tracey Spring

First: a quick anecdote: I played the generic/specific word game with the yr 9 on Monday. We had a shoe shop. I explained that one at a time we would run into the middle of the circle and pick up an item from the shoe shop, say what it is and then run back to our places. The first item picked up from the centre was ‘Louis Vuitton’, quickly followed by ‘Prada’! There I was ready with my ‘black laces’: only in a GSA school!

Wavelengths…this is quite tricky; take it slowly and introduce new levels gradually as players have got the hang of the previous level/version. Once they’ve ‘got it’ they feel a real sense of achievement and connection to others; this game/exercise allows for players’ own creativity (eg in beginning a fresh –dialogue- starting- line that they think others will pick up on) and for them to introduce lines from any play they (all) know and/or are working on…

Everyone get into a circle. Leader can choose to explain that this is an exercise in ‘wavelengths’ or having one dialogue with one person at the same time as having one with someone else if s/he wishes or this can observation can be made later in your game plenary if you have one. You can say that you only ever move on’ two’ then on following even numbers if you wish, depending on the level of your group. Players can figure this out for themselves and have fun doing so in a more able group.

To get started, the leader nominates someone (a ‘giver’) in the circle to say ‘one’ to another person across the circle. This ‘receiver’ says ‘two’ and steps towards the giver. These two continue to count between them 1,2,3,4 etc in a rudimentary ‘dialogue’, with the receiver stepping towards the giver on his/her even number. At the same time, all others in the circle look intently at the giver so that when the giver gets eye contact with one of them, that person becomes the new ‘giver’ and says ‘one’ to the first (or as the game goes on, previous) ‘giver’ who then becomes the new ‘receiver’ and begins to walk towards the new ‘giver’ with ‘two’. This way a new ‘dialogue’ has begun. Meanwhile the ‘receiver’ steps into the place left empty by the ‘giver’. This pattern continues with encouragement for focus, pace, fluidity etc from the leader until the group is on task, cohesive and feeling confident. No easy task.

Then…the leader introduces a new type of ‘dialogue’ the a,b,c,d conversation! It works in exactly the same way as the 1,2,3,4 dialogue and can alternate in sequence: 1/a/1/a etc or be random.

23

Other possibilities: well-known nursery rhymes, “Humpty Dumpty” or “Twinkle twinkle”; lines from well-known plays, “But soft, what light from yonder window breaks?” etc; counting in other languages, alphabet in other languages (super tricky) or lines from a play they’re working on…eg from DNA: “ Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil…!” Have fun!

An extension of the slap canon game is to have the students put their shoes on their hands in front of them. Either with the same action as with the canon or with a ‘both hands out to the sides then in front of you’ action, the players chant, “which ones are my shoes, I can’t tell. Mine are the ones that never never smell!”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SHWAAA! contributed by Vivienne Penglase

'the sound of sharpened Samuri sword cutting through air.'

Good for Rhythm, physicality/abstract movement and ensemble.

We are Samuri with blades of finely sharpened steel – arms straight meeting at hands.

Group in a circle – sound and movement happens together

Start with someone leading Namaste accompanied by unison bow with hands pressed together, palms touching and fingers pointed upwards in front of the chest.

(Namaste – A common benevolent salutation / Yoga meaning – We are all one)

Then repeat the rhythm till hesitation… the one who makes the mistake either leads the next Namaste or is out by sitting down...

1. Namaste – unison say and bow2. Shwa! While bringing sword downwards and making eye contact with someone

across the circle – slicing them from crown to toe (first person needs to raise arms to begin the sequence)

3. Shwa! Person eyed raises sword above head in response.4. Shwa! People on either side of raised sword slice swords together towards the

person between them…no contact 5. Shwa! sword downwards 6. Shwa! Sword upwards .7. Shwa! 2 sides slice

Grand final: 2 people 2 options1. Take up the fighting position – Jackie Chan hands, wide legs, side on to

opponent – after group countdown of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 they both say Swa! – whoever makes noise the longest wins

24

2. An adapted version of above: with both opponents doing moves alternately and the side stroke being done by one person using both arms going outwards to come in.

Variants and extensions

Lunges in each of the directions noises! What you will

From Complicité: I’ve found it productive to give students 2 balls, 2 hats and 2 wastepaper bins and ask them to invent a game – all sorts of interesting conversations result about what creates tension; simplicity vs complexity; satisfying endings; fun; etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OLD FAVOURITES

ZIP ZAP BOING – Eastenders Version – contributed by Mike Perry – Warwick School

Zip = FRANK (the wheezier the better – soft K)

Zap= PA’ (silent ‘T’ in Pat!)

Boing = ‘Get aat a my parb’ – (Babs Windsor style if possible)

Jump over one person = ‘RICKY!’ (again wheezy if possible)

Anyone can step in the middle and say ‘YOU’RE NOT MY MUVVER’ (imp to pronounce this correctly with the double V), then anyone can step in with ‘ YES I AM’ (high drama required). If two attempt to ‘yes I am’ at the same time they are out. If only one it carries on from them.

Variant –Thanks to Annette Griffin - 'Ave it! - pass to left or right; Leave it aaat! - reversing the direction; Get aaat of my pub! - passing it across the circle.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAKING A SHED GAME – contributed by Steve Evans – Queens College, Taunton

One actor 'A' in the middle 'making a shed'. All others in a circle around. Anyone can enter the circle but must enter in character (Any character. Stereotypes are good. Be clear with your physicality. Different accents etc)

Dialogue must be as follows:

B (entering circle) Hello (or suitable greeting..'G'day' 'Howdy' 'Bonjour' depending on character

25

A Hello

B What are you doing?

A Making a shed

B Can I help?

A Yes

Actors then make the shed in the style of the character until another actor enters playing a different character. Repeat the dialogue again in a new style. Actors already in the space must immediately take on the same accent/age/physicality as the new entrant and respond together in unison. The game ends when the whole class is in the space. (It does get a bit messy with more that 8 or 9 but teaches them to listen and be aware of what's going on around them)

26

QUESTION TIME discussion-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Panelists-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alice King-Farlow Director of Learning at the National Theatre Cultural Learning Alliance Steering group member

Alice King-Farlow joined the National Theatre in June 2009 as Director of its Discover Programme of education and public engagement. For the previous five years she worked independently as a consultant, producer, researcher and writer for major performing arts organisations across the UK, including the Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, The Sage Gateshead, the National Theatre, Barbican Education and others. She also worked with the education sector, as a consultant to Arts Council England’s Creative Partnerships programme in schools, and was a guest lecturer in

arts management at London South Bank University. Her publications include Raisingthe Game, on schools, culture and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games,and Creative Ways to Mozart, exploring young people’s involvement in educationprojects across Europe.

From 1996 to 2003 Alice worked at English National Opera as Manager and then Headof ENO Baylis, English National Opera’s education programme. Previously she workedat Opera North from 1991 to 1996 in the company’s planning department and as Editorof opera programmes.

Alice has a degree in English Literature from Oxford University. In 2006 she wasawarded the Youth Music Fellowship on the Clore Leadership Programme for thecultural sector.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Barnaby Lenon Chair of the Independent School Council

Barnaby Lenon is the former Head Master of Harrow School. He retired in August 2011 after what the TES reported as 35 years of being institutionalised. Rather than retiring as such he became Chairman of the Independent Schools Council (ISC).

He is also a governor of a number of other schools, and Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society. He is obviously delighted with Geography's place in the Ebacc group of subjects

27

In 2012 he helped start a Free School in the East End of London, the London Academy of Excellence, and he is now the Chairman of Governors. In 2012 he also joined the board of Ofqual, which manages standards in public examinations in England.

As Chair of the ISC he is arguing for improvements in the reliability of public exam results. Indeed, Mr Lenon recently courted controversy by standing up for the use of multiple-choice questions in exams and the use of rigorous coursework

He is a trustee of Yellow Submarine, a charity which supports children and young adults with learning disabilities in Oxfordshire, and Vocal Futures, a charity which tries to introduce young people in London to classical music.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sally Mackey, Deputy Dean of Studies, Central School of Speech and Drama

Sally Mackey is Professor in Applied Theatre and Performance having started teaching at Central in 1992 as a drama education specialist. (She is co-author of Drama and Theatre Studies and editor/author of Practical Theatre) She introduced ‘applied theatre’ to Central and still teaches predominantly in that field. An external examiner up to PhD level at several universities.

She is on the Editorial Board of RiDE: the Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance.

Sally is a governor at the BRIT School, chair of alumni company Full House and recently co-convened TaPRA’s (Theatre and Performance Research Association) Applied and Social Working group for four years.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach from Oxford University

Mike Nicholson has been Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Oxford since October 2006. Prior to that he held a range of roles at the University of Essex that involved responsibility for student recruitment, widening participation and undergraduate admissions.

He was a member of the UCAS Board of Directors, National Chair of the Higher Education Liaison Officers' Association, and served on a number of groups looking at issues around access and admissions reforms.

28

Since starting the role at Oxford, the University has, in addition to developing the electronic management of the UCAS process, addressed the use of contextual information in the admissions procedures, introduced a database to effectively coordinate the outreach activities of the collegiate University, reformed the training of staff for applicant interviews using an online training programme, and introduced a range of blogs and podcasts to raise awareness of the admissions practices. He is currently exploring the development of access and outreach provision within the University, the integration and development of the IT systems supporting admissions, and how best to support international applicants. Mike continues to read extensively (mainly history and detective fiction) demonstrating the lifelong values gained from studying a degree in History and English (University of Sheffield) and at Allegheny College Pennsylvania.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oliver Parker, Film Director

Oliver Parker is a film director, screenwriter and previously an actor and theatre director.

His first film was an adaptation of Othello in 1995 and starred Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh. Next he adapted Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, starring Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore and Jeremy Northam. The film was nominated for two Golden Globes and three BAFTAs. He also directed an adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Reese Witherspoon, Judi Dench, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth.

His other feature film credits include Fade to Black,; I Really Hate My Job, Dorian Gray, both St. Trinian's movies and in 2011 Jonny English Reborn

His television work includes The Private Life of Samuel Pepys, starring Steve Coogan; Billingsgate Alfie, starring Jim Broadbent; and Copper Clive, starring Steve Tompkinson.

Prior to becoming a film director and screenwriter, Parker was an actor and theatre director, spending three years at the Dog Company with legendary horror maestro Clive Barker.

Dan Rebellato, Head of Department - Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway

29

One of Dan's specialism is post-war British theatre, having published 1956 and All That, a rereading of the ‘theatrical revolution’ thought to have taken place at the Royal Court around Look Back in Anger.

Inspired by post-structural thinkers like Derrida and Foucault, and the German critical tradition, from Kant to Adorno, his department introduced Philosophy as an undergraduate joint degree programme.

He is also a playwright, whose work has been performed across Britain and in Europe and America, on stage and radio. He

designed, with colleagues in English, two new joint degrees in Creative Writing

Dan is an experienced panelist having chaired numerous platforms for the National Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, and Manchester Royal Exchange. He is an artistic associate for Analogue theatre company, a regular contributor to the Guardian stage blog, and a contributing editor for New Theatre Quarterly and Associate Editor of Contemporary Theatre Review.

He tweets continuously it seems and describes himself modestly as a World renowned playwright and exotic dancer

30

Transcript of the panel discussion by Izzy Foley

General introduction of the panel by Mike Perry (MP)

Panelists:

Alice King-Farlow, Director of Learning at the National Theatre (AKF)

Barnaby Lenon, Chair of the Independent School Council (BL)

Sally Mackey, Deputy Dean of Studies, Central School of Speech and Drama (SM)

Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach from Oxford University

Oliver Parker, Film Director

Dan Rebellato, Professor of Contemporary Theatre, Royal Holloway

Clarissa Farr High Mistress, St Paul’s Girls’ School

Other contributors:

Jay Green Head of Sixth Form, Bedales (JG)

David Jackson Drama Department, Reigate Grammar (DJ)

Victoria Watkins Drama Department, St Paul’s Girls’ School (VW)

Lucy Baxter Drama Department, St Paul’s Girls’ School (LB)

Natalie Maher Head of Drama, Bishop’s Stortford High School (NM)

31

MP Lara Stoby asked a very open question which I think would be a very good way to start off our discussion today: If you were to make one single argument for the inclusion of Drama in every school curriculum what would it be? Who’d like to kick off for this single argument of why Drama should be in every school curriculum? Dan might like to start this one off?

DR This is a very difficult one in some ways to answer because it is so open. One of the things I would say is, I’m going to cheat and give you two, because of on one hand I think there are so many ways in which drama facilitates so much else in terms of young people’s education; in terms of preparing them as individuals, as citizens, preparing the mind and the body; giving them a chance to encounter some of the most complex forms of cultural expression that human society has ever produced and all of this, helps to make them better people in various other ways, or can do.

And then, on the other hand, I want to say I don’t care about all of that and I think we should also be quite hard-nosed and say that there is evidence of theatre for two and a half thousand years, pretty much unbroken, there is no culture in the world that has never not had a theatre tradition. It is in itself a valuable and important human activity and it should be studied. And I think we could also just end it there.

SM Beautifully summarized and difficult to follow! I suppose there is nothing there that I would disagree with there and everything that I would agree with. I suppose there is also something about that moment of emotional engagement that is still interesting for me which might come through aesthetic understanding, aesthetic appreciation, a participation in a creative event, which allows one…it’s about emotional cognition, it allows one to just change one’s thinking slightly through that engagement with a theatrical or performance event.

OP Well its tricky there is that sense that drama is the one subject that can extend our empathy and to really help us to understand what its literally like to be in someone else’s shoes. While there are so many reasons to commend other subjects, this is a particular and individual opportunity to really engage people. I mean in my business there is a Chinese proverb we have “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, but engage me and I will understand”. So there is nothing better on the syllabus than Drama for engagement.

MP Tracy Spring asks the question: If, as Sir Ken Robinson says that collaboration is the stuff of growth and that we learn best when it is at its peak, why are schools inclined to offer less rather than more creative arts education? So if it’s the stuff of growth, if it’s all these amazing things, why are schools prepared to offer less of it?

AKF Speaking from an outside perspective, from working in theatre, I simply find it mystifying that we’re offering less of it. I mean Ken Robinson’s perspective; it seems to me, is an incredibly important one. It seems that one of the purposes of education is about

32

developing imagination; developing creativity; developing resilience; developing all of those skills that you need in future life which ever direction that leads you in, whether it leads you into the arts as a practitioner, or as an audience member or you just live in a country that values the arts.

It seems to me crazy, I also find that this sort of sense of division of creativity over here and other teaching over there curious, well more than curious, mystifying. Creativity seems to me to be something which exists across all learning areas. I mean you need to have creativity to be a scientist. I was talking to a young playwright yesterday who trained as an embryologist and is now an extraordinary playwright; the idea for her that she wasn’t creative, for her, when she was studying biology is again mystifying.

Just one further thing to add I think there are an interesting set of arguments being developed around the idea that STEM subjects shouldn’t be STEM subjects as in Science, Technology, English and Maths but STEAM subject with the addition of Arts, this is a very useful acronym.

MN I would just say, from, if we’re looking at the kind of further development beyond school, from a further education point of view speaking from a university that doesn’t offer a Drama degree, we have an awful lot of drama going on. And if we look at, certainly at Oxford and how it helps our students, engages our students, it helps them with actually dealing with the pressure of being at Oxford. There is a real value in having that opportunity, so I wouldn’t disagree with the statement at all but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a qualification for people to get the value out of it.

MP So let’s get into this whole idea of Drama being a soft subject, is it a real subject, is it worthy of higher level study. Gavin Henry asked to what extent is the future of drama, as an academic subject being threatened by these negative perceptions of it as a soft subject and the recent problems with the standards of marking and assessment, on the one hand the subject is not seen as tough enough and on the other it seems soft. So where are we going with this concept of sort and tough subjects?

BL Well, I think it’s worth being clear what lies behind the decisions that have been made by let's say the Russell Group and the Department for Education over the last four or five years. There have been two issues that they have been trying to deal with: the most significant has been the fact that far too many state school pupils have been doing the wrong subjects and that’s why the Russell Group produced their list of facilitating subjects because they were becoming frustrated by the number of applicants that wanted to do subjects like Engineering but had not studied Physics and Maths. And this government has continued to do research into this and they are still very concerned that too many bright children are being sent down the wrong road early in their school careers.

And the other concern is, as we all know, about the PSAT results for Maths, English and Science. So the difficulties that Drama/Theatre studies now face have been, first the Russell Group producing this list of non-facilitating subjects which obviously hasn’t done you any

33

great favours. If you want to, later on, we can talk about arguments are for taking that forward. But clearly that hasn’t helped.

Secondly, one of Gove’s first decisions to be introduced is this new league table measure, where you are judged on the proportion of your students who get a GCSE in English, Maths, Science, Modern/Ancient languages and either Geography or History and that has had a really big impact in state schools with larger amounts of pupils being transferred to these subjects that weren’t doing them before, at the expense of all other subjects.

Then there was the decision that Gove took about a year ago, to introduce tougher GCSEs from teaching 2015 and at the moment, the only, and this first group in English Language, Literature, Maths, Science, Geography and History only. So that’s giving the impression to people that these have a special status, all other subjects will come along in 2016, but never the less the fact that this group is being pushed forward doesn’t help arts, creative subjects, practical subjects in any way.

Then came the decision to do the same thing with A Levels and toughen up A Levels for teaching 2015, Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English Literature and Language, Geography, History, Economics, Business Studies, Psychology, Art, Sociology, Computing, this group and the expectations that other subjects will follow along 2016 but never the less yet again its giving everyone the impression that the rest are being left behind…slightly.

And if I can just lob in here further issue which you’ve now all got and that is the concern about of the validity of coursework as a way of assessing students and that comes back to Gavin’s question about problems with standards of marking and assessment.

The English GCSE last summer, which I guess most of you were teaching 60% coursework was found after a great deal of research to have been seriously flawed, not only because it was modular but also because so much of the coursework hadn’t been assessed properly by teachers and it hadn’t been moderated properly by exam boards. So now the mood in the Department for Education and by OFQUAL is very against teacher assessed coursework which is a bit of a problem for Drama/Theatre studies and the consultation of this is due to come out this Tuesday, this next week. It going to be very important for this organisation and for each of you individually, to fight the fight, actually, for practical subjects.

There’s no urgency about it, the first wave of the so-called tougher GCSE’s will be sorted out over the next 12 months, but in the latter end of 2014 and the early part of 2015 that is when, at the latest I’d say, your subjects are going to be reconsidered. So it’s this whole raft of issues starting with the Russell Group and going through all these decisions taken by Gove that has left people with the impression that the softer subjects, a horrible phrase, are being left behind and treated in a second class way which in a sense I think they are.

AKF I would just say that it’s more than an ‘impression’ of second class status as a result, if we look at the government’s research into the impact of the EBACC introduced as a

34

performance measure, which was done by Ipsos MORI, available on the D for E website there’s quite a large number of schools that have already withdrawn subjects, it's quite a high percentage, I can’t remember the exact percentage, I think nearly 25%

And of those schools that have withdrawn a subject, the subject that is most likely to have been withdrawn is Drama or Performing Arts. And if you talk to schools and teachers who are teaching drama and theatre studies in the state sector, I don’t know if it is so true of the independent sector, are feeling that pinch very strongly: in terms of curriculum resources; curriculum time; pressure from governors and, actually also, which breaks my heart, a view from parents that Drama is not an important subject and not a useful thing for their children to do. So very, very successful drama courses with large numbers of students who have been doing them have now very few students who are taking up GCSE Drama. So I think, while there may have been lots of good intentions, there has been some seriously bad consequences in terms of access to the arts across schools.

MP I’m sure there will be examples in the room of people who have felt that pinch, just hearing that response, I think that’s true. Sally would you like to comment?

SM Just a couple of points. The Ipsos MORI report was actually 25% of 27% of 600 schools that were surveyed and so actually 5 % of those drama had been decreased so, I know that sounds really pedantic but I think one of our ways forward is stats and numbers and figures to demonstrate some of the points that we want to make. And just to come back to what Barnaby was saying about the practical subjects equating to course based assessment, which, certainly when I was teaching drama in schools, none of it was course based, it went right through to end examination. Whether that was a practical examination at the end or whether it was a written examination, that isn’t new, to certainly drama, theatre studies subjects, we’ve been in that position before so again to equate practical subjects with modular course based subjects is just one of the slight sort of areas we want to clear up. To put ourselves in a better position as well. It’s not necessarily a good thing that it moves away from modular based and course based assessment but we are perfectly capable of doing it.

MN As the only representative of a Russell Group University, I feel I have a role to play here today. And that is basically, we did the guidance because successive governments have failed to invest in information, advice and guidance, particularly in England, which meant that there were all sorts of misinformation about what universities were looking for and expecting. The Russell group guidance of facilitating subjects was meant to help people but unfortunately was a taken as a list of prohibitions on what people could do. It was very clearly spelt out if anybody bothered to read the actual document but of course it wasn’t ever done that way. The Telegraph and Daily Mail and others just said here are the subjects your children should be doing if they want to get into top universities, and ever is it thus, unfortunately. What I would say is, it’s very clear that what we then had subsequently is a government minister in particular, driven by an ideological belief, that his own

35

interpretation of his own education is what everybody else should be subject to. That’s where the problem lies, it's not want of people saying this is nonsense. If you look at the Ofqual consultation on qualifications then the overriding, overarching response from higher education was A levels are basically fine. There’s a few that need looking at Maths, because it's trying to do too much, some of the Sciences, maybe Modern Languages if you are worried about the lack of literature in Modern Languages now but the vast majority of universities and the vast majority of academics from universities don’t think we need to by trying to justify and totally reorganize the A level and GCSE systems in such a ridiculously short time span.

ND: I was just thinking in independent schools, speaking personally, a Headmaster or Headmistress will want a nice school production, would like a musical to happen, they don’t have to study those subjects at GCSE or A level and sometimes I feel that there is an assumption that anybody can do those things, they don’t have to study them in order to be able to do them, so someone who doesn’t study Drama and Theatre Studies can do English and Economics or whatever else they want to do and still be a very good actor and do very well but they don’t have to study it. And I think it's getting away from that misconception. Studying drama and theatre studies can give you a lot more skills than just being part of a production or just in the musical. And that’s where the misunderstanding comes from, from those people who never took drama or and arts subject at GCSE or A level. They think you can do it anyway in an independent school.

MP Gavin Bruce’s question was should the independent sector do GCSE and A Level at all or should we just concentrate solely on big extra-curricular, co-curricular productions based area of school life. So why have the subject at all?

DR Well it’s funny, I mean my own experience, my own school didn’t do drama and theatre studies, but this was quite a long time ago. So I did English and History and French and stuff, I didn’t know that you could do drama at university. I sort of looked around and kind of discovered there was this thing you could do. And I remember the look on the careers teacher’s face when I said I wanted to do drama at university. It was like I’d said I was going to become a burglar! The thing that, well the thing is that I’m sort of in two minds about these questions is that of course drama is a very inter-disciplinary subject in a sense that you know, really getting to grips with, what theatre does, what performance does, what it’s about, you kind of do need to have a little bit of a sense of literature and of history and of possibly archaeology, another language, philosophy, psychology, all of these things are really good in a sense that, we get a lot, the students that we teach, we get a lot of different, a really eclectic mix of topics and that really enriches the subject. Of course when I say that, when I went to university there were only about ten places that offered drama and theatre

36

studies. When I started at Royal Holloway, which is twenty years ago, there were only 35 students in a year. Now there is a hundred and twenty and that is clearly driven by the expansion of drama at A level. So, while in a rather abstract way I think that there could be a broad mix of things that could feed into theatre studies; I do think that there is a real danger for the whole health of the sector of the reduction of theatre studies at A Level as an academic subject.

MP Gavin, would you like to come in on this?

JG He’s in Cornwall.

MP Well maybe Jay, you would like to pick up on this?

JG Well, I think it's interesting to say, going back to what you were saying over there, I think there are many of us in this in this room, some of our strongest actors don’t get an A Level, many of them leave us and the numbers at A level in the independent sector I think you can see the squeeze coming through, the parents start to pick up more and more on the prevailing wind of publicity. It’s a very, very hot potato, because all of us in this room rely on its position in the curriculum for our jobs and our income. But there’s much endowed to argument, that there was unbroken line in theatre before we started peddling our wares and there will be after we’ve gone.

SM One thing that I was hoping to stress at one point and it kind of dips into what Dan was saying is the development of this subject field and the development of this discipline over the last say thirty years and I think that is something that we need to acknowledge, take that as where we are now and where to move to. So, when I went to university to study English and Drama and I did some research on this recently, in terms of how the field has developed. How strong this field is and therefore how much we do need this field to be educated from a young age. It’s a developing discipline, a developing academic discipline that’s moved through the sector and so when I went to university, I asked Peter Thompson this who was my professor at Exeter, there were probably about 200 first year students, so we’re talking about the mid to late seventies. Well the mid, not mid to late seventies sadly… there were probably 200 first year students. Now looking at this and there were only five or six courses…

DR you mean 200 students across the whole country?

SM Across the whole country, 200 first year students, five, six courses. I’m older than Dan obviously. If you go onto the UCAS website you’ll find 678 courses with the word drama in the title. Now, clearly some of these have doubled up, you might find drama and sociology, drama and French but with the same sort of drama core but 678. I reckon, although that’s a real guess, that’s about 12000 first year students now. In 1997 there were 1700 students taking A level, now this is stats taken from Edexcel but it covers all the boards, and in 2012 there were 15164 – so that’s in a very short space of time those numbers have gone from 1700 to 15000. 41% of those 15164 applied for University drama

37

courses or HE drama courses, that I think includes the conservatoire sector. And that’s as against 10% for English. So, and one could go further than that, when I went to university there were like four books, Peter Brook’s Empty Space, Richard Sothern, Yan Cott and Aristotle’s poetics and if you look at Palgrave MacMillan alone there are over 138 drama and theatre performance titles. Now, one might say there are too many drama courses at university, people might say that one might not even need to go to university to carry on doing drama but my point is that we have developed a deep, rich broad discipline, a field of study and not to support that below the age of eighteen seems to be me to be crackers. What we’ve done is developed, all the things that Dan said at the beginning, the subject that allows us to engage, to appreciate, to recognize cultural heritage and that is something that we have to maintain. If we think back to one hundred years ago, English at University was just, was a new subject. It was a dilettante subject. It was considered for those who couldn’t do classics; you know it was downgraded to that sort of level. And you look at it now, despite all that is going on, I can’t compare but some of us who sat through the National Curriculum coming in to play have been through similar situations, can’t really compare the same but you just have to fight for it. You don’t let your head teacher say we only do it as… was it co-curricular term now? Rather than extra-curricular? This is why we do it, here are the arguments, here’s the…, here’s the …, here’s the …here’s the document that points it out, here’s the document that cites this, this, this stat, this, this, this person saying this and you just continue to fight for it as we did at the National Curriculum time. So the development of a very rich discipline, a very strong position we’ve increased and we need to maintain that fight

BL: Also, doesn’t it seem like it is a question of strategy because when you hear about impressions, whether they are false impressions or not, clearly, if the status is not upheld it is going to be eroded. Whether one actually, in an ideal world, would have it as an exam is a different question, it is essential as a part of education and one has got to find a way of incorporating it, at the moment you feel that unless you are in that particular part of the stream, you are going to be sloughed off.

AKF I was just going to make the point that, again this may not apply to the people in this room, but if it is not a qualification, as in the state sector, it will simply not exist and I think that it is essential that it stays.

BL Yah, I mean, I think I’ll just take that point and give you a few bits of practical advice that you should do over the next year, I agree, it's well worth being pushy. In a way the secretary of state doesn’t care too much about theatre studies, drama and that’s a good thing for you. That’s a good thing because it means you are not going to meet much resistance, you know, he’s really concerned about English, Maths, Science, everything else is

38

pretty secondary to him. If I was you I would push to get your school to retain AS levels. I think that those schools that choose to reduce down to three subjects in the Sixth Form and forget about AS levels. Theatre Studies is going to have a pretty difficult time so pushing for correct status for AS level in your school is really important.

I think that this organization should get completely involved in the process of GCSE and A Level reform, as I was implying earlier. I mean, you have a voice, quite a powerful voice, so you need to be working out now, if you haven’t already done this, what you would like a Drama GCSE to look like and what you would like a Theatre Studies A Level to look like and be ready to give that document to Exam boards, to the Department of Education and Ofqual, all of those separately, three exam boards, the D of E and Ofqual, five different people in each place because they don’t always speak to each other but they all have important influence on the process. Don’t worry about the EBACC League table, that will disappear fairly soon – it is! You know, hopefully many people know that Gove’s already planning to adjust the accountability measures as they are called, these league tables and its already being softened up to the benefit really of arts subjects, quite rightly.

I think as far as the Russell Group’s facilitating subjects, this list of facilitating subjects is concerned, what most of our schools have found here is that there are plenty of our students who are getting into Russell Group universities with Theatre Studies A Level so what you need then is the stats. I mean, I agree with whoever said you need to fight this with statistics. What you should be doing is finding out in your school how many of your school’s boys and girls have gone to Russell Group universities with Theatre Studies as an A Level and then that will prove that there is no barrier in going to a top university, including Oxford, of course.

N D I’m thinking of it from the other end, from this statistics question. I trained originally as an historian at Oxford and then I have been a primary practitioner for years. Through my practice as a practitioner that I have come to find drama to be so enabling and powerful as a subject. Now I teach English, History and Drama in a prep school and in actual fact it is the drama that enables those children and I know from personal observation how powerful drama is as a tool in terms of actually benefitting their wider education, particularly for boys. And I think more research needs to be put in there in terms of their wider education and the benefits that drama brings.

MP You will struggle to find the word drama in the Key Stage Two National Curriculum. It's not there at all. Would anyone else like to comment?

ND And then at the opposite end, stats have come out with Britain’s creative sector are employing far more than our financial sector, so actually we should be preparing our students to study that. I think we also need to educate those who don’t understand the subject because there is… I myself was always one of those people who was always in plays and did English but shouldn’t do drama and found how ignorant I was. I mean at much later date that there was a whole body of theory, there is a body of history, and that requires

39

research, essay writing and a practical application of theory, in a way it is one of the hardest subjects. You don’t have to write a volume of poems when you study literature.

DJ I think to a certain extent when you talked about status, that was a really interesting word to use because I think we’re at a crossroads, it's an interesting point where we are, because obviously status needs to be maintained but I think from curriculum 2004 with the way we’ve maintained it: to be examined, and the assessment of those exams, certainly in some of those exam boards has been capricious and I would say the way Heads and the way League Tables and schools have used those examination results has been pernicious and not been particularly the positive end of drama in education. I personally believe that you can get an enormous amount of skills out of the subject and I personally believe that the status of the subject is vital in school and is the heart, the beating heart of any school community. Should it be in the curriculum and assessed in the way we are assessing it is a different question for me. I think and I can totally understand the state school argument, I went to state school myself and if I hadn’t been for drama in the curriculum I may not be here now. But we are a group of independent school teachers, I think if we could find a way of maintaining our status without having to kneel at the altar of spurious assessment, that would be, for me, allow me to teach drama in the way that I would want to teach it which is to benefit of the creative. And it would be also much more linked to what you are talking about, which is a wonderful culture of learning, inter-disciplinary learning and a genuine life changing movement, rather than what it is reduced to under Labour and Conservative governments, which is jumping through hoops. I think we need to avoid that and this for me feels like a point where we should have the bravery rather that going “we’re an academic subject, we’re just like everyone else, Oh please help us”, coming out of the closet and saying “We’re nothing like anyone else, we’re not an academic subject, we’re harder than that and we would like to be at the centre of the school not because we provide exam results and not because we can be assessed but because, and this is extraordinarily idealistic, of what we can do to young people.

MN Can I put a question to you and this is around everything you do with your kids. It’s very clear that one of the few things that all the political parties agree on, if that’s quite the word, is that they actually come upon social mobility. And it strikes me that, given the potential your sector has to engage with the state sector in the area of drama, given how important it is for students to have the skills set and the experience of drama. Is there are way that you can actually strengthen your case by doing collaborative work across sectors?

DJ Yeah, I work for the National Youth Theatre, and the National Youth Theatre changed my life because it was an organization that allowed me to mix and talk to posh people and it was the first time that I was ever in a process with a group of people and realize that just because you spoke in a different way from me that you could still be thick, which was a wonderful revelation for me. The way that happens through a production we put on in front of a real audience, a group of real people and do you know what, a real audience, a group of real people doesn’t discern through social class but academia does unfortunately. And that’s why I think a real audience and a real product is so important because if anything facilitates social mobility it’s actual, accountable, I’m engaged with a

40

group of people in this at this point rather than who my dad is and he knew somebody in a college in Oxford and got me in.

MN What I’m saying is the sector as a whole…

DJ Yeah, we could, yeah.

MN There is probably more than you can do to build your strength if you are doing that.

MP Alice, I was at the House of Commons when we had that opportunity to contribute to the select committees meeting and you talked about the fear of the two tier system and I’m afraid this might be one of the tiers in front of us.

AKF It is, from the point of view of the sector, it is a real fear, in that we are seeing, in terms of the people that are coming into the profession that they are not coming from the diversity of backgrounds that we would like them to be and I think…So I have a lot of sympathy with your view. I just wonder if you could take it another way and say, given that there is a lot of work going on to reform qualifications and the work by Ofqual and separate piece of research the Arts Council and the CCC are doing, looking at arts GCSEs, could we take some of that back and make the qualifications better?

DJ If it’s training them to get into arts organizations? If we want to accredit children to get them into arts organisations and I know that’s not necessarily what we want.

AKF That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean really, it seems to me that, confident schools in the state sector as well as the independent sector with head teachers and governing bodies that value the arts will continue providing a broad curriculum which includes the arts. Those schools without head teachers and governors who are supportive of the arts will find less cause to do so if the arts come out of the central curriculum provision. The EBACC and the GCSEs, regardless of whether they change, and that’s worrying but the earlier curriculum, Key Stage One through to Three and the absence of drama from that curriculum is even more worrying. I mean the independent sector you do extraordinary work, you have an extraordinary wealth of resources and space and technicians. It seems to be that you have the opportunity to me to act as a real beacon and so I think it would be less helpful to other less well resourced, less confident schools in teaching the arts if you moved away from them entirely in the curriculum.

VW Just to add to that, on the flip side, there is an assumption that assessment is bad, I certainly think, I went to a state school, I did GCSE Drama and I did A Level Theatre Studies and I loved being assessed in those subjects. I found the academic study of those subjects was part of the appeal of them. I think there is the danger always that the student who does do drama, don’t do study and don’t like exams, that’s not their strength, their strength is performance. It’s not always about that. We need to be careful that we don’t make assumptions about that as well because there is a real role for assessment in terms of stimulating the students, it drives them, and it’s certainly true for our students, they are

41

motivated by the desire to achieve. I think it would be perhaps naive to think that as long as they could be in a play that that would satisfy the same desire they have to be genuinely successful in a particular subject area. There is a role for academics; it’s in universities for a reason. I was that student who was pulled into the head’s office and asked “are you sure you want to go to university to study drama” and I said “Yes I do.” And I don’t regret that decision for a minute. There’s no harm in people being made to think about it but it needs to be there as an option, to the option for those people that want those challenges.

N D I think just to follow on that point, about assessment, as I’ve recently done a masters, it’s quite interesting about the way in which they evaluate you. Our two words which were taking “creative risk” and I think that’s a really vital aspect to taking drama because it's this ability to take a risk and know what that means and know what that feels like and also in terms of creativity as well. I think that feeds into other areas of other subjects as well, just to follow on from Victoria’s point there. It’s very exciting to be evaluated in that way.

DR I think that’s a really important point because, going back to that point of should just be done as something, kind of, as a co-curricular activity. That seems to me, both a very old fashioned view of how society works because it treats the arts as a form of supplement that you put on the front of your nice prospectus and you can invite governors in and “everyone tried really hard” and that sort of attitude. Actually, that starts to of course say that it’s the first thing you cut it times are tight and we had the spectacle a couple of months ago of the culture secretary giving her first speech in eight months as culture secretary about the arts which was very encouraging [sarcastic tone of voice].

And she said it completely up front I don’t want to hear any justification for arts funding, in this case, except and economic one and that’s…that’s quite new…even in the sort of Blair/Brown years where there was still “you have to justify the arts in other ways, social inclusion, mobility” and that sort of thing. There was still never that “just tell me how much money it makes”. The thing that’s complicated about that is that there is an idea around; I think that idea that the arts are an ornament, of that they are the first thing that you should cut, is very common. And I don’t think in our sector, not only in universities and schools but in theatre more generally, we have effectively made the case that we should have been making. Because, the way, in terms of arts funding, (going slightly off but I’ll come back to the education thing in a minute) the arts funding argument has tended to be “How can you possibly justify spending, funding an opera house and taking money away from beds and hospitals?” The fact of the matter seems to be that every pound that goes into arts subsidy produces four pounds for the economy. In fact is the Royal Opera House pays for beds in hospitals and for schools. But that is not something that is widely recognized.

I think there is a similar thing in education because the kind of evidence that we all have, that is in the research, and all the people in this room will have anecdotally about the way in which working in drama can transform a person’s life, it can be literally life-changing in very

42

intense periods of time, particularly times of intense activities. That also, has an effect on their other subjects, so that idea that this country needs physicists and mathematicians, so we must take them out of drama. I think we need to be very clear about the thought that doing drama is also going to help us be better physicists and mathematicians. I think that is something we have to remember and really hit home.

LB I just want to follow on from something Dan was saying, and the gentleman over there about the NYT, one thing I think we ought to be focusing on as well, is its value as ‘live-ness’, its people in space, its bodies in space, and to use your expression, community, which is very much the talk of the moment, in a digital age where we are all switching off from each other, drama is all about switching on and understanding that even the Royal College of Surgeons will get actors in, so as undergraduates we can earn a bit of pocket money, but also that we can teach them their bedside manner.

And unfortunately that also means that we are expensive to assess, in this ridiculous position we are in now, where we are all ticking boxes, rather than there is an examiner watching a performance live, and let's face it it’s the financial situation that we’ve got now that put us in this awful assessment situation, which we have to deal with but it makes us expensive for all the right reasons but it doesn’t help our cause.

N D I just want to follow on about the point of creative risk element, the advantage that drama or theatre arts, IB or theatre studies as a creative subject as an academic subject is that you can take risks which you can’t do with school productions, you can push a small group of people in a very interesting and creative and a dynamic and exciting way which you can’t expect of people coming along because they want to be part of something and enjoy the experience and show. You know they have the rehearsal process, whatever they so they want to because they want to share something. Whereas in class, where they want to be in something but push it further and try something this is going to be difficult, this is going to be hard. When you are doing it purely as an extra-curricular experience, you are looking at different things and asking them different things and I think both are part of that beating heart of the community. We need people to take risks and be exciting and dangerous and bring new things to other people in the school. As well as having those wonderful productions that unite and develop a particular community within a school so I think it’s important to have a balance.

N M As a stowaway from the state sector, coming to talk about the BAC with Jay, within my school , other subjects come to me, other facilitating subjects come to me to find out how, as we are obviously governed by Ofsted, lesson planning and observations constantly, with regards to this new box that we have to tick called SMSC which is the social, moral, spiritual and cultural and that’s the box that we tick the most, ourselves and art and music and so other subjects are coming to us for advice and our sixth formers who can roll out behaviour management and run clubs for students lower down the school. There are so many other benefits as everyone in this room knows but luckily within my state school, I’m

43

in that top percent where my head teacher does really respect the arts and it's not just extra-curricular, it is the beating heart of the school and until they change the school motto which is “a truly all-round education” I’m alright.

N D We’re a small contingency from Scotland and in Scotland the curriculum puts the arts back and centre, we create confident individuals etc. And we now are looking to develop that because they see how bad things have become and how limited children are with their thinking because they’ve gone through so many hoops in learning and learn in such a narrow way, they are coming out of university and people are saying this is not what we want as they are not the individuals who can come out and become creative in any field because they are so limited. There is a huge, broad, range of different ways but we need to back them lower down.

MP Its interesting, at that select committee, Singaporean education was cited as being the influence on this whole movement towards this EBACC, this rigorous system and the Singaporeans are coming over here to get creativity! And they want to refine their education system to be more like ours. It’s a crazy circle there, wasn’t it?!

Let’s talk about what happens afterwards, Oliver, if someone comes to you with this creative risk but no qualifications and want to get in the film industry do they really need a qualification in the arts to help them get on in that kind of world?

OP To be honest, not necessarily, no. I think I’m less concerned about the relationship between my particular aspect of the industry and how people are trained for it because there are lots of ways for people to get training outside school. What I see, is a kind of social, across the board, lack of drama and, hearing, when I came in and talking to you Tim and trying to find out, do some last minute cramming as to what really happens in the schools and with education, how much room there is for the drama teachers do what they want to do and that sort of stuff and a good head teacher here and head teacher there it sounds like this raucous rift and these few people are defending these marauding thoughts of antagonism.

And I’m more interested in the whole ideas when we are talking about creativity and how important it is that there is the relationship between, not just giving the space for the student to be creative but for the teachers too because it has to be an entire relationship. I mean, I was very influenced by my drama teacher at school and that relationship was very important to me and did inspire me to pursue various avenues, theatre and stuff like that and because he was jumping around, inventing new things that didn’t seem to have anything to do with what we were meant learn. It feels like all these things, of what impressions we are making, we need to know what the intention of educating these children is and what we are trying to get in the end. But for me the end, is not particularly for them to come streaming through into my business. It’s actually looking out into society, and I can find some great characters and they can come from anywhere, you know they can come from a youth theatre or they can come really from the streets if they’ve got a passion

44

for telling stories. And where it does interest me, drama, is drama is all about story and conflict and being able to explore that in a safe environment. We’re not equipped for it.

Didn’t answer your question at all did I?!

SM On that, we have a very exciting survey called the PTES, at university level. The post graduate taught experience survey and I just happened to be looking this morning at some of the stats from that and one of the questions on the survey is: To what extent did this degree help you get another job? The connection with work. And it was quite interesting, there are only 30 % who said “not really” so 70% saying “Yes, it kind of did actually or "yes, it absolutely did”, that’s across 14 different MAs and all in different drama related subjects. But that was actually higher than I expected, that 70 % said Yeah, actually, it did or it certainly did, I kind of needed it. So, something like becoming a drama and movement therapist, you would need to have the relevant qualification obviously. But perhaps you wouldn’t necessarily need and MA in acting to become an actor. But it was interesting; I thought I’d just chuck that out there.

DR There were a pair of surveys, there now probably going back 8 or 9 years but the Guardian and the Independent both did surveys where they asked a lot of employers in a huge range of different things to look at their employees and find out what degrees they’ve got and think about who had come with the best skills, the skills that you needed for your job, okay. Law came first, Veterinary Science came second and drama came third. Now at the next meeting of academic board after that came out. All the other professors were eying rather suspiciously as how to take these results. Then the Independent did their results, their survey Law came first, and Drama came second. And because actually what that does mean and this is just about the broadest range of careers the kind of things you need to get good at if you get good at drama are the kind of things that are really, really useful in kind of pretty much any workplace now. People… there’s this sort of obsession with STEM subjects as a particular think tank that suddenly kind of said you know “we need more manufacturing industry”. You kind of go “We haven’t had any manufacturing industry in this country since the 60s”. Basically, when I was born was about the time the service sector overtook manufacturing okay. The service sector is all about how to understand performance, being able to manipulate images, tell stories; they're the kind of things that drama is particularly brilliant at equipping us for. Drama is an amazingly employable discipline. That isn’t something; a message that we have got officially.

MP So therefore, why are courses in training teachers closing and changing our way of training?

A recent graduate from the University of Warwick just basically asking the question, you know: Why have I bothered to qualify as a teacher, to teach drama, is there a job for

45

me? Is there a future for people to be trained in drama teaching? Would anybody like to take that one on?

AKF I think we have to be optimistic, I guess thinking about kind of cross-road moments one of the interesting things that has happened with the EBACC is that arts organizations and subject associations kind of rose up and spoke with one voice. And um I think if we can continue that kind of voice, that kind of arguments and Dan brought up about economic arguments, the arts have produced a big piece of research, a report has just been made to the treasury so I mean there is a lot going on and I think we need to sort of stay optimistic and stay firm as a sector and keep making the argument, argue for it for economic reasons and for social reasons and for cultural reasons and not give up. And so, I think, yes, it’s really great to train as a drama teacher.

DR And this crowd won’t be in power forever.

MP I think because we are coming towards the close, we should go for that idea of guidance and suggestion. I know that you Barnaby, you certainly given us some ideas of things that we should be doing, and staying strong. Should we still be encouraging people to train in our field?

BL Yes, definitely. I mean, I’m not the expert in this but I assume a lot of people who teach drama also teach English.

(General groans of disapproval, murmurs of no from the NISDA Delegates)

But for me, I encouraged both my daughters to do theatre studies A Level which they did and I have taught in boys schools for 35 years and the reason I support the subject amongst the other reasons that have been given is because my life has been spend largely trying to motivate boys to do work and take an interest in anything that my schools have been interested in. And at any one moment there is always a reasonable proportion of pupils who I’ve taught who are more interested in drama than anything else. I don’t really believe in core curricular or having narrowly defined versions of what should be taught in schools because my experience is, with boys, is that the struggle is to find something that they are interested in and if that thing is theatre studies then that’s great, because they will then develop all the attributes that we are looking for: enthusiasm, hard work, willingness to read texts and if they really go at it then, as with every other subject, the deeper you go the more it gives you exposure to other areas of human experience which have been mentioned. Like History and Literature and even eventually Science and through theatre studies particularly, technology. So I think for me, these are the arguments and I think, as was just been said, this particular push in recent years towards a focus on a very limited range of subjects is soon to pass.

46

SM Can I just pause quickly on, and say something on teacher training, which I think is one of the saddest things that is going on at the moment, not just in drama but in other subjects as well, whereby the numbers of government funded places in teacher training have become increasingly limited. The Institute of Education, the school of education at Warwick is about to close, I’m not sure Reading University will maintain its Drama PGCE next year and so on and so forth so there is a significant and quiet change, you may well be aware of it, it’s not hitting the national headlines at the moment. Quiet changes in teacher training so I think that question from the student graduate from Warwick, I think you are very fortunate to have had your PGCE year and there will be jobs for you as I do think the discipline of drama will continue and will continue to grow by the way. But I do think we have a whole new agenda of how we get the thinking about drama education taking place because it is those people who have been working in the university education sector who’ve been driving forward through with the books, the changing of the curriculums, influencing people and that’s a whole sector that’s in danger of going. I think the position of teachers to train on the job, for which for years I’ve been criticizing as an apprenticeship model, rather than a deeply philosophically based model, as well as practice. I’ve worried about it but recently a number of people have pointed out that that shift, schools are picking that up well and they’re recognizing what is appropriate, for students who come in at twenty one, for goodness sake, to become teachers in schools. They are recognizing what is needed. So perhaps that is not so much of an issue, we will wait and see but what does worry me is that the whole range of people that I grew up with from Basil Bernstein to Ken Robinson to Michael Ross even Jonathan Neelands at times, all that gang are….I just don’t think that they are going to be there, doing that kind of writing and thinking which is partly what they’ve be paid for. So that slightly worries me.

MP I’m afraid we have no more time, I’ve been given signals for several minutes now. I think we’ve covered a great deal of ground this afternoon. Clarissa would like to finish up:

CMF One thing, I would like to finish on, I feel, I’ve been very interested by everything that has been this afternoon, as somebody who sits slightly outside this debate but also within in it, as a head teacher but as a drama specialist myself. I feel a really important challenge has been thrown down this afternoon to this organization, which is obviously very strong by the fact that all of you people have given up a weekend, the second half of half term to come and spend your time talking about your craft with other teachers. First of all, to cleave to the ideals that you feel so strongly about and as Sally has reminded us there is a body of scholarship and knowledge that’s grown up over the last half century in this field and it has to be fed and it has to be continued and it's up to you to produce the people who will continue it and of course as Dan has also reminded us, we’re talking about 2000 years of history here in the development of theatre across all world cultures so there’s no question that what you’re doing is incredibly important from an ideological and cultural point of view. But also, as Barnaby has said there’s a pragmatic opportunity here to give shape to Michael Gove’s indifference about this subject and to actually come up with proper proposals, statistically proven and rigorous in that sense as Sally has emphasized and a chance to make

47

a difference and to be heard and to provide for in the short and medium term, a proper curriculum in drama that will be taken seriously, from which all the more important and indeed more fundamental cultural drives that have been talked about this afternoon can continue to flow. So we have to not be precious about assessment, we have to face the fact that we have got to sit within the curriculum, like everything else, like geography, like any other subject. We’ve got to get over that and allow that to happen but from that foundation, then, continue to build that much stronger and deeper principle that you have been talking about. So I think it’s a fantastic challenge and I really hope that NISDA, this weekend, will start to organize itself to do that because you could really make a big difference to that, I think.

Transcript prepared by Izzy Foley

48

Rory Kinnear - notes by Vivienne Penglase

Shakespeare journey of actor to now is so much further and likely to be more unsuccessful that the journey of greatest playwright to now. Behaviours and habits change but themes based on don't.Modern version we all aware it is an old play ....See the differences but made more striking are the resonances to today... Allows actors to be more real and the person they are liberating rather than speaking as they think they should be 400 years ago. Fun as well as thinking what the modern equivalents are....easier for actors and so audience to engage in.

Discovery of your-self and engaging others in worlds characters and ideas......encounter the new Taking on other characters and personas exploring other ways to be and be exposed to the unfamiliar. Literature and culture history geographical encounter a range and from a dynamic engaged perspective. Explores the state of self. Therapeutic channelling expressing emotions from minor and major Collaborative way of working Imagination, instinct and experiences applied, have to bring yourself and tuition of your intuition. Developing expression and confidence in all areas.Explore feelings, understand them and express them

Escape Area of expertise and skillsVocal and physical and self presentationCommunication skills for allBoth process and product have different equally important values.

Great directors atmosphere of creativity where there is no wrong answer, just have to bring come thing and create, to offer as many interpretations and options about you character. Openness to discuss Ideas and generate ownership and sense of value for all.Director line: Remember when you did it with a sense of pride....

Different functions at each level.KS3 communication, collaborative and personal skills that actually enable them to access all subjects more effectively.Content social and empathetic, other worlds e.g. Evacuees, bullying, Literature from. Performance perspectiveLive theatre - aesthetic and technical appreciation academic skills of description, analysis and evaluationCreativity and imagination, invention, originality - devising and improvising in response to range of stimuliStyles and genres

KS4 & 5Those elements at a progressively more sophisticated level and the content becomes more academic.Theory and its application

49

Plays and playwrights - ability of literature analysis taken for granted, and then the theatrical understanding and terminology utilise that.Performance and technical skills

Personally challenging time commitment energy - get out of it what you put in. Life lesson.

Curricular and extra curricular offers different experiences serving different purposes.

50