These first lessons will explore approaches to journaling and the role of the journal and make important connections with the Learner Profile, TOK & CAS. Practical work will focus on building the ensemble and exploring the different roles students will explore over the course (director, performer, designer, creator, spectator). We will audit skills, interests and approaches. We will use Google research into what makes a successful team to understand how to build the ensemble. We investigate International-mindedness and make connections across cultures and places.

We begin by exploring the work of Jacques Lecoq and in particular his work on the neutral mask. Guided practical exercises, for example, The Awakening', 'The Departure' and 'The Journey Through the Elements' help students practically explore theory and focus on moving away from the socialised-self to focus on physicality and sometimes voice. We will apply this learning to a suitable text (such as Shakespeare's 7 Ages of Man) to explore how to move from the printed word to a live performance. We will explore a few ways we might use text to create original work. We will watch a performance by a physical theatre company (e.g. Frantic Assembly's 'Beautiful Thing') and unpick how the director creates moments of impact (TEAM) for the audience. We move onto study Trestle Theatre's approach to both full masks and their new archetypal masks and, after completing practical activities (e.g. walk across, hot seating, clocking, inner monologue, playing counter-mask, etc.), we will improvise material and create a short original piece which is filmed and then reflected on in a write-up.

Building on the previous work with masks, we will explore the tradition of Commedia dell'Arte that has inspired so many areas of theatre since the 16th Century (including Lecoq, Trestle, etc.). You will be introduced to the demands of the RP and guided through the research steps for both the unfamiliar tradition and your chosen performance convention. We will learn how to approach research tasks and how to select appropriate and useful visuals/quotes, how to structure slides and use them (and maybe accompanying notes) to guide the presentation and how to practice to timings. We will film the 5 minutes and complete a reflection task on the (final) filmed presentation. You will continue with Section B of the task over the holidays and as h/w next term.

We will collaborate with DP Music students to create an original performance aimed at a younger target audience in Primary school. We will tour to the primary school (and other schools if health situation allows) and experience moving a piece to a different space and working with various variables. We will borrow from the approaches of different theatre companies to inform our process and we will identify clear intentions for the work that will relate to the chosen audience. We will create original material from a chosen starting point and using a wide variety of techniques (improvisation, mood boards, etc.) and will adopt a clear structure to help shape the work into a meaningful performance. We will rehearse and prepare the piece and consider how various performance and production elements could be used to create appropriate impact and achieve agreed intentions. We will perform the work to live audience and film it. We will conduct a Q&A/talkback which we will use to help us evaluate the extent our intentions were achieved.

After some homework time given to learning your stock characters (body and voice) we will run workshops to teach each other the different stock characters (ie. your chosen performance convention) and we will carefully select the "traditional material" for you to use to break down/practically explore and experiment with inform your process of exploration with. We will film your 5 minute talk for Section B and reflect on this experience.

In this unit we will focus on the roles of director and designer and explore how to approach staging a play (e.g. Medea). We will identify key ideas in the play and use these to inform an original interpretation with clearly articulated directorial intentions. We will investigate how to use production elements to create a design vision for the play and we will use a range of techniques to develop and articulate this vision (including for e.g. moos boards, sketches, swatches, scale models, etc.). We will explore selecting 'moment(s)' from the text and how to create moments of impact with TEA and/or M through a combination of both performance and production elements. For the school exams at the beginning of May, you will submit a mock PP write up and this will also inform, along with other appropriate evidence from the year, your initial university predicted grade.

Students will select from the published IBO list a theatre tradition from around the world that they are unfamiliar with. They will research the conventions of the tradition and its contexts (e.g. theoretical, cultural). They select a performance convention (using body and/or voice) to research and then follow a process of practical exploration of their chosen convention. Traditional performance material will then be used to further practically explore the convention. Finally, students will reflect on how this process has helped their continuing development as a performer and how this inquiry into the theatre tradition has developed their understanding of theatre in the world.

Students work in an ensemble to collaboratively create a piece of original theatre in response to the IBO published starting points. Collaboratively they decide their theatre maker intentions, target audience, etc. and create, rehearse and prepare material to perform to 7 - 10 minutes to a live audience. Due to C19 restrictions, this year the IBO have cancelled this assessment task but we will complete the practical work as students have studied the theories and a short play of Artaud and they will apply their learning to this creative process. Students will prepare a talkback with their audience to measure how far they have achieved their stated theatre maker intentions and this will be written up at the end as practice for the STP later in the year.

Students choose a published play (any language) and work as director - designer to create a production proposal over 12 sides of A4. They first understand the key ideas in the play before deciding their own interpretation and directorial intentions. Then they decide their overall production elements and how these will be used over the course of the whole play to achieve their stated intentions. Finally, they select a 'moment' to zoom in on and explain in detail how they intend to use both performance and production elements in this moment to create tension, emotion, atmosphere and/or meaning (TEAM). The draft is assessed as the schools' mock exam assessment.

The final assessment task, the STP, which is externally assessed and is only for HL students. Students will select a theorist that they have not studied in class, research their theory and overarching intentions, select an aspect(s) of their theory and create, prepare and perform an original piece of theatre lasting 4-7 minutes to a selected target audience. This performance must be in line with their theorist's intentions and must demonstrate their use of the selected theory & aspect. They will collate audience feedback and refer to this in their accompanying write up to explain how far they achieved their stated intentions.