Drama Week Two

Day's Activity	Related PLUS Materials
6. Story Boarding 7. Writing / Music 8. Drama for Film 9. Drama for Film 10. Circus Skills / Kite Making / Filming Practice	Story Telling / Visual Arts Music / Literature Drama / Story Telling Drama / Story Telling Designing our World / Circus / Visual Arts / Digital Photography

Monday: Melton - Daniel Newnham

Daniel had been working with the Learners already as a support artist and they were pleased to see Mark return in a support role. The group showed a fair amount of respect and enjoyed playing a warm-up game called Descripto-Draw (see Drama Gallery). The Learners worked in pairs and cooperated well in what they saw as a "classroom" setting, learning about costumes and sets. They also participated well in an exercise learning simple drawing tricks (see Drama Gallery).

The group reviewed some video clips and this led to some over-excitement from Stig ad Noel. D showed a bit of a return to her former good work and started a book in which to keep her work. The day ended with the introduction of an IRP book on dreams which John hoped to work on when he returned.

Tuesday: Melton - John Cheetham

There was some good work done on drama exercises and group work. John introduced the idea of "The Dream Maker", a story to be created by the Learners about dreams coming true.

There was a problem at lunchtime which took place in the park while playing football. Stig and Noel were involved with an outsider who had cannabis and this led to chaos for the rest of the day. The situation was mainly caused by Stig already being on his "final" chance from the incident in Week One. He was incredibly disruptive and no help was available to have him taken home. He was left with Karen and the rest of the group were taken elsewhere. He still managed to get out of a first floor window and misbehave. After some debate a decision was taken to allow him back for the rest of the project despite this behaviour.

Wednesday: Melton - John Cheetham

Stig was absent. Crispy, who had only been willing to do camera work before, stood-in for him in front of camera. Less positive was the attitude of Fil who was needed for acting. He was sullen and distant, claimed to be "fed up" with acting and had to be intensively coaxed just to get a little participation out of him. This may have been (in part) due to the disruption of having the Visual Arts group on site as well. He showed more interest with an electronic game of Twenty Questions and some warm-up games.

D and Noel were uncooperative again, but she did some scriptwriting work in her book.

Thursday: Brooksby - John Cheetham

There was some disruption with lack of access to the room and equipment. Fil had brought in a board game as it had been agreed that the group would have a more relaxed day. They played some games to start, writing down guesses to whistled tunes. D did a little work on her script. Noel did some storyboarding but was frustrated by not getting it perfect the first time. Fil did some good perspective drawing.

Lunch was the normal mix of playing games (frisbee and football), followed by things going too far, balls being kicked against windows and frisbees going over fences.

After lunch Crispy and Stig were joined by Noel and Fil learning blues piano from John. By writing down numbers on keys, John taught them some sequences in a short time. Stig was particularly quick to learn this. D worked on some quite personal lyrics to a song relating to the script work. John improvised a tune and sang it to everyone.
Later, Fil finished his drawing, Noel did more storyboarding and Crispy helped organise a drawing game. Players had to draw the names of two animals out of a hat and make a new creature out of them.

Friday: Brooksby - Karen Legg (Leggy)

Sue, the Circus Skills worker, was ill so Karen ran the entire day, starting with kite making. For the first time Noel showed avid interest and got stuck in making his kite. His expectations again seemed too high and he quickly got despondent with what he made. D didn't participate well but the others quickly made their kites.

There was a problem flying the kites as campus staff were marking out the fields for a dog show. After some negotiation a spot was found and everyone had fun flying the kites, especially Fil who had done brilliant construction work on his.

After lunch Karen started the group on book making and monoprinting. After the excitement of kite flying it was difficult to get the group to settle. D and Noel spent most of the time monoprinting each other. Noel continued to be disengaged and more difficult throughout the day.