The following train offers college students the chance to observe energetic listening, teamwork, taking path, and downside fixing as a bunch. Acting as an ensemble with a scholar director, group members will create a tableau scene illustrating three moments from a well-recognized story, utilizing each member of the group not directly.
The phrase “tableau” comes from the phrase tableau vivant, or “living picture.” Students will use their our bodies and imaginations to create frozen photos to inform the story — no phrases or sounds allowed. Blinking and respiration are at all times acceptable — and crucial! You could chortle, however each time I play this sport with college students, there’s at all times one one that asks, “Can I still blink when I’m frozen?”
You’ll want a stopwatch or clock to point how a lot planning and rehearsal time is out there.
Optional: A smartphone or digital digicam to take a photograph of every tableau scene, so college students can see their work
Warm-Up
To get college students within the tableau mindset, use Tableau Scenes from a Book or Numbered Tableaux as a warm-up train.
Instruction
1. Divide college students into massive teams of 8–10. Adjust as crucial relying on what number of college students you’ve gotten, however attempt to have no less than 2 separate teams.
2. Select one director per group. This scholar shall be accountable for the ultimate look of the scene however is welcome to take recommendations from the group members. They should additionally take part as a member of the tableau scene.
3. Give every group a well-recognized nursery rhyme or story immediate with a restricted variety of named characters, equivalent to The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or Sleeping Beauty. Groups will select three memorable moments within the story to painting in three frozen onstage photos. Let college students understand how a lot time they should plan and rehearse.
4. Each group member have to be included within the tableau scene not directly, regardless of there being fewer named characters than college students. What else can the opposite college students painting? They could be props (such because the spinning wheel in Sleeping Beauty or a bowl of porridge in Goldilocks), set items (equivalent to one of many Three Little Pigs’ homes), environment (solar or moon, timber, background creatures), or no matter else is sensible for the scene. Encourage college students to make inventive, considerate selections that add to the general image, however don’t neglect that the director is to make the ultimate choices for the look of the image.
5. Another factor college students must take into consideration is the transition between the photographs. How will the group transfer from every tableau?
6. Students will current their tableau scenes to the remainder of the category.
7. Optional: Take a photograph of every tableau scene so college students can see what they appear to be within the frozen image. Ask your college students: what labored properly on this scene? What didn’t work so properly? If you’re exhibiting the images to college students, ask them: whenever you take a look at the images, does the scene appear to be you imagined it will look? What would possibly you modify in case you had been to try the train once more?
8. A mirrored image is offered (see under) to permit college students to consider their participation within the train.
Additional Options:
- Have college students plan their tableau scenes silently. How will they convey non-verbally?
- Tell every group secretly what story they’re portraying, and have the opposite teams guess what the story is.
- Tell solely the director what story their group is portraying. The director should instruct the remainder of the group with out revealing what the story is.
- Try the train once more, switching among the group members, with much less planning time.
Click right here for a free reflection and rubric.
Kerry Hishon is a director, actor, author and stage combatant from London, Ontario, Canada. She blogs at www.kerryhishon.com.
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