Programme Booklets for Plays (Wai Wan - Blogpost 2)

Hey there folks, hope you're having a great week! (whenever it is in the week you are reading this)

At University, a few of my friends took a module on Theatre Production and they were made to do Programme Booklets for a hypothetical performance of any selected play as part of their assignment (they were also required to do many things such as seating plans, acquiring costs and budget information in the planning of their hypothetical production). What followed was some weeks of frantic researching and lots of frustrated screams from my flatmate - who for that period of time sang Ylvis' "What Does the Fox Say?" whenever she got really frustrated and needed to destress.

I decided against embedding the YouTube video here for everyone's sanity.

Anyway, that led to me thinking I could adapt the very same idea but for students! (i.e. removing all the really technical, difficult and non-literature-based issues like acquiring hypothetical funding and hypothetical venues). I did a quick search and found that someone on the internet already had a similar idea.. I guess in this day and age, it's really difficult to be an inventor of something completely radical and new. :(

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/create-playbill

Needless to say, my fellow educator from scholastic.com, Emy, did her lesson planning brilliantly and has taken into account many things. Scholastic.com, by the way, is an interesting place to find resources if you're stuck trying to teach something (I was taking a gander around it because I procrastinate a lot).

No one mourns the wicked.

Making a programme booklet requires many things that I think will be very useful for the teaching and assessing of Literature in the classrooms.

1) They need to have read the play. Because they'll need to write a synopsis. A good idea would be to have both Sparknotes and Wikipedia open beside you so you can very directly tell them synopses found on the internet will not work. This can assess for understanding of plot and important plot elements. And also, actually, help them understand issues such as suspense and twists (which they should not include in the synopsis!!)

2) They should have a firm grasp of the thematic concerns in the play. They can then design the aesthetics of the programme booklet to reflect which thematic concerns they are most engaged with for an hypothetical audience. Learning-by-doing and Real-world-context in one hotpot of a collaborative-learning exercise! This helps assess thematic understanding of the play. Also, if they put pictures of the "set" in the booklet, assesses understanding of setting. 

2b) or not 2b? Meanwhile this can help them brush up their multi-modal literacy.

Yes, I should.

3) If the class dynamic is safe and healthy, it may also be worth asking them to cast their own classmates as the characters in the play! When they do so, they can write under the "Actor's bio" portion inventive (and by that I mean fictional) reasons why their friend is capable in the role. Extra points if they link it to characterisation (e.g. Actor who is ex-military performing as Othello). Helps assess for understanding of characterisation.

3b) Alternatively, they can just provide justification for why. For example, someone is calm so he is such-and-such. Someone is a great noble leader and therefore he can be a Greek Tragic hero, etc.

4) I also personally believe it is very helpful for students to be able to imagine a play happening on stage. If they can do so, the role and impact of dramatic techniques such as monologue and soliloquy will be easier for students to understand.

5) Typeface and fonts, etc. can also be discussed in relation to the play's genre or "type". Perhaps a comedy will warrant "softer" more casual fonts while tragedys will require more "solid" fonts with sharpness to convey a concept of seriousness and "you-will-cry"-ness. Awareness of genre and what genres require/entail.

And I am still somehow not sorry for my meme spamming. I am an evil person.

I get the feeling I am missing a lot of the potential of programme booklets for assessment and teaching still, so if you can think of any do let me know!

Till next time! (when I will ramble about the three books I need to speed-read from now till the deadline)