Component 3 Theatre Makers in Practice

Learning IntentionA03 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how drama and theatre is developed and performedA04 Analyse and evaluate your own work and the work of others.

SBS: Resourceful (Questioning, Making Links, Imagining)SBS: Reciprocal (Collaboration, Empathy & Listening, Imitation)SBS: Reflective (Planning, Revising, Distilling, Meta-Learning)SBS: Resilient (Absorption, Managing Distractions, Noticing, Perseverance)How will you use these skills to help you achieve the success criteria?

The Crucible by Arthur MillerDirecting and Designing the PlayProduction Teams

Decide on the Director for the groupDecide on your roles and remember to work collaborativelytogether to support each other with the tasks – you are a team!

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7

Lewis Fran Hannah Inti Josh Sam Sophie

Katie-May Niamh Nicole Danni India Holly C Orla

Cameron Jaymz Harry Theo Seb Zack Charlie

Cieran Sean Ben Ed Kaydian Josh Beatriz

Emily Holly S Saskia Geogie May-Li

The Crucible DIRECTOR VISIONby Arthur MillerAs a Director you will need to explore some of the key concepts, characters and themes that are central to the play and consider how you would take these key ideas from the play and communicate them from ‘Page to Stage’

You must work as GROUP to pitch your idea for the production to the class. You must decide on your overall theme/concept/vision.

In each group you must have:

• A Director

• A Set Designer

• A Costume Designer

• A Sound Designer

• A Lighting Designer

• The Director must question each designer to develop a creative concept.

• It is important that you have an overall vision for the play in performance before you start to work on your presentation. Remember that audience impact is key

• The Director will need to work with the group to organise the presentation and display

The Crucible Directing and Designing the Play

by Arthur MillerSuccess Criteria

• Know how performers, directors and designers influence performance style, design elements and staging to communicate meaning to an audience

• Understand how designers use set and props to create impact and meaning

• Understand how designers use lighting and sound, including colour and music, to create impact and meaning

• Understand how designers use costume and make up to create impact and meaning

• Understand how directors use the stage space and spatial relationships to create impact and meaning

• Develop appropriate interpretations of the text from the perspective of designer and director

Knowledge Line

I can talk with confidence about my overall Director’s VISION for the play

Agree Disagree

SBS• Resilient –Perseverance• Resourceful – imagining• Reciprocal – collaboration• Reflective - planning

The Crucible DIRECTOR VISIONby Arthur Miller

Consider your vision

• As a Director you have to make some important decisions about your approach to staging The Crucible before you go into rehearsal.

• The design concept for the production and the framework for your exploratory work with actors in rehearsal will flow from your overriding idea for the play.

• You need to show your awareness of how all the production and performance elements come together under the guiding hands of a director to create a piece of theatre.

Where will your set your play?

• The play was written by Miller in 1952 and he based his play on events which happened in America in 1692.

• Miller intended to draw parallels between the events in 1692 and what was happening in the USA in the 1950s and make his audience aware of the comparison.

• Many of the themes of the play remain relevant to modern audiences.

• You could research incidences of witchcraft in England or other places around the world for your vision. Examples included Pendle Hill or The Fairy Trials of Sicily

• You could decide to have a more modern vision. E.g. The Blair Witch Project. You cannot change the text or dialogue but you can influence the ‘vision’ of the play

• Either has the potential to reflect the universal themes from the play such as

Power

Intolerance

Respect and Reputation

Fear and Persecution

Secrets and Deceit

Justice and Religion

Hysteria

Discuss your VISION ideas

• Use homework to research your overall vision as a group before you start your individual tasks as designers.

The Crucible set designby Arthur Miller• Staging is the term used to describe

the layout of the stage space.

• Staging describes the format, or layout of the performance space in relation to where the audience is sitting. There are a number of standard formats used in theatres. Some performance spaces are always fixed whereas others can be flexible to suit a number of different formats depending on the production.

• The Set is everything on stage that the actors stand, sit on, move across and exit and enter through.

The Crucible set designby Arthur Miller• To help designers, directors,

technicians and actors understand each other when working onstage; we call different parts of the stage by a different term.

• The part nearest to the audience is known as downstage.

• Further away from the audience is upstage.

STAGING & SET KEY WORDS

Traverse Location

End On or Proscenium Arch Time Period/Era

In the Round Scene Changes

Thrust/Apron Symbolism

The Crucible set designby Arthur Miller• Set design is hugely influenced by the style of the performance.

• You may see a naturalistic set which tries to reproduce a ‘real’ environment, with a feeling that the ‘fourth wall’ has been removed for us to look at the characters lives.

• In contrast, an expressionistic set will have obscure angles and be more dreamlike, and may have a minimum amount on stage.

• Set can indicate for us:

• LOCATION

• ERA OR TIME PERIOD

• REFLECT THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES

• CHANGES OF SCENE

SET DESIGN TASKS• What type of staging will you use in the

play?• How does the set design help to show

where the play is set?• How does the set design show us what the

characters are like?• Describe a moment where the set helps to

create an impact for the audience.

• How will you represent each Act? The Crucible is set in FOUR locations in and around Salem.

• Using the model box consider how you will use the space.

• Include sketches and diagrams

The Crucible sound designby Arthur Miller• For the purpose of this exercise we will include Music as

well as Sound. Sound therefore allows us to understand things such as

• LOCATION – where the scene is taking place

• ERA – when the play is taking place, such as a historical piece.

• MOOD/ATMOSPHERE – and any change to that taking place

• EMPHASIS on an important moment, such as a flashback, or a ticking clock, a slamming door.

• CHANGE OF SCENE like lighting, sound is often used to cover the sound of a scene change

• DRAMATIC CLIMAX – helping to build tension

SOUND DESIGN TASKS

• How will SOUND help you to understand the action in a particular moment on stage? Describe what happened to the sound in your key moment.

• How would the sound help to create a particular ATMOSPHERE or IMPACT for the audience?

• Why do you think sound is important in this play?

Exploring different music and sound effects for key moments is another effective way of considering how design can play an important role in the development of a key idea or theme. Choose an example from the play to support your ideas

• For example, consider the sounds of the Parris household or John Proctor’s farm that might punctuate the narrative and support moments of tension or revelation.

• Do music or sound effects underscore key speeches like John and Elizabeth Proctor’s in Act Four, or the ‘yellow bird’ incident in the court anteroom?

SOUND KEY WORDS

Volume Background Sound effect

Mood and

Atmosphere

Live or

Recorded

Genre of Music

The Crucible lighting designby Arthur Miller• Lighting is the most modern production

element, being developed from when the art form moved into purpose built theatres using candlelight, and later with the invention of electric lighting. Lighting can help to show us

• TIME OF DAY – through colour and the intensity (brightness) of the lighting

• LOCATION – for example a bright hospital or dark forest glade

• ATMOSPHERE – again through colour and angle of lighting

• WHERE TO FOCUS – such as a spotlight on an individual

• A CHANGE OF MOOD – by altering any of the above, often with sound.

• A CHANGE OF SCENE – often by dimming the lights to allow for movement of set and props.

The Crucible lighting designby Arthur Miller

LIGHTING DESIGN TASKS• How could the lighting help to create a particular

ATMOSPHERE or IMPACT for the audience?• How could the lighting suggest a time of day, or a location

(place where the scene is set) to you?• How would a CHANGE of lighting help you to understand

the action on stage? Describe what happened to the lighting at that moment.

• If you have access to different lighting effects, it might be useful to explore key moments in different lighting states. Miller makes some reference to light – in Act Four, for example – and it would certainly be useful to attempt to recreate this or, indeed, to go completely away from it and look at more abstract lighting at this and other moments during the play.

• Because the play is set in four indoor locations, how will you consider lighting states to reflect each of these?

• Research into previous productions and lighting designs to see how other theatre makers have used lighting to create impact?

LIGHTING KEY WORDS

Colour Mood Intensity

(brightness)

Fade up, Fade down

Spotlight Shado

w

Angle Dim

Blackout Focus Atmosphere Scene

The Crucible COSTUME DESIGN

by Arthur MillerCOSTUME DESIGN TASKS

• Research is key, and this will help those who are initially daunted about the thought of ‘designing’. Look at the time of the play and develop ideas for performance by sourcing and designing potential costumes that either reflect the puritanical society of 1692 or that deliberately move away from it.

• You don’t have to be great artists to create great designs. The main thing is that you approach the design of the production in a holistic way. Is their costume design expressionistic, representational or more naturalistic?

• What is your aim and intention? Does your costume design root the production and performance in a particular time period or style? How does the performance of an actor playing Elizabeth change when she wears a long skirt, blouse, shawl and bonnet, for example, and how would this costume be matched by those of male characters? It is always interesting for designers to interview performers and discover how costume can reveal insight into characterisation and interpretation.

• Design a costume for AT LEAST TWO characters using a template

• Use the template to draw the clothes worn by your character and label them. Consider the size, colour, type of material and condition the clothes are in and how that is suggesting meaning to the audience.

• Describe how the costume helped you to understand the character and how links to the overall VISION.

Costume KEY WORDS

Material –

cotton, silk,

rough, smooth

Size – well

fitting, too

large, too small

Colour – and

how that is

important

Condition –

new, worn, etc.

Status, Class,

Importance

Rich, Poor,

Detailed, Basic

Knowledge Line

I can talk with confidence about my overall Director’s VISION for the play

Agree Disagree

The Crucible production meetingby Arthur MillerAs a Director you will need to explore some of the key concepts, characters and themes that are central to the play and consider how you would take these key ideas from the play and communicate them from ‘Page to Stage’

You must work as GROUP to pitch your idea for the production to the class. You must decide on your over all theme/concept/vision.

In each group you must have:

• A Director

• A Set Designer

• A Costume Designer

• A Sound Designer

• A Lighting Designer

• The Director must question each designer to develop a creative concept.

• It is important that you have an overall vision for the play in performance before you start to work on your presentation. Remember that audience impact is key

• The Director will need to work with the group to organise the presentation and display

• 1. Summarise your design concept for your group in your books

• 2. Stick in a copy of your presentation in your book

• 3. Stick in your feedback