A new semester, a new play. Middle school.
After three years of going in with a starting point for my middle schoolers, I decided that I wanted to start fully from scratch. A blank page. Scary place to start.
Week one and two, I focused on developing ensemble, playing with stage image, and getting the kids more comfortable with devising and improv. Skills skills skills. After that, I had them bring in images and songs that “spoke to them,” that evoked worlds that they wanted to inhabit. We did devising of stories around some using tableaux and storytelling, scenes around others, and improvised moments around others. We then listed out the most memorable moments.
On Monday, we first practiced a sort of long form improv, which I directed in the moment. For this, I begin with a prompt, then ask the kids to create that moment. I’ll request to see a different scene that’s inspired by what I saw. I then had them improvise scenes based on the previous weeks’ work.
Yesterday, I asked a bundle of questions related to the the work they’d done. For this, we built story.
Today, I’ll be bringing them concept… and away we go.
Briandaniel Oglesby 