Playing with Text

Paul King

38 / 3062Paper-based / ePack
ISBN: Paper-based 978 1 85749 739 7; ePack 978 1 84070 462 4

• Suitable for GCSE, KS3 and the school play
• Use as workshop exercises
• Use as vocal warm-up games
• Practical games and exercises

101 things to do with script!

At KS3 and GCSE, students are required to work with text. Playing with Text offers an improvisational approach to working with text and scripts. It provides opportunities to explore words and meaning in a lively, fun and practical way. Students are encouraged to discover a wide range of options from which to choose the most appropriate way to ‘speak, move and act’. The pack also gives students the skills to turn text into performance.

Bring lessons to life

Playing with Text encourages students to take responsibility for their own interpretation of text. It helps students to:

• speak text with volume, clarity, definition and enunciation
• see text as physical action and to physically engage with text
• interpret text in a creative and imaginative way
• perform text in an energetic, lively, committed and varied way
• understand text and communicate meaning to an audience
• be empowered with the skills to interpret text creatively.

Note that this product is also available as part of the Digital Library for Drama KS4.

Contents

Introduction

Preparation

• Walking exercise
• Using skeleton scripts

Playing in film, television and theatre styles

• Victorian melodrama
• Murder mystery
• Reaction shots
• Spy film
• Gangster film
• The Famous Five
• Wild West
• Mills and Boon love story
• Horror
• Children’s television programme
• Science fiction
• Action film

Playing with the emphasis on the voice

• Accents
• Speaking with difficulty
• ‘Informacting’
• Giggling
• Singing
• The dimwit game
• Volume
• The Manuel game
• Tongue-twisters

Playing with the emphasis on the physical

• The signing game
• Levels of tension
• The right size game
• Mime
• Dancing the play
• The speed run
• Playing with exaggerated enthusiasm
• Tag