229624 Resource 203097 210601 210601 1238515638423 1239037782672 Controlled The Theatre Classroom—Second Semester: Part Six

A seven-day assignment using modern monologues for character development

Doing one monologue was not enough exposure to solo acting, so after Spoon River the students needed to work on something modern. I purchased a class set of modern monologues, with an even number of selections for boys and girls.  <a title="Meriwether Publishing Monologues and Duets" href="https://www.meriwetherpublishing.com/Catalog.aspx?cat=2" target="_blank">Meriwether Publishing</a> has many great ones to choose from.  Two words of caution, however, in selecting a monologue collection: 1. Be sure to read every piece in the collection. You do not want them to be too serious -- remember that students love angst!2. Do not give the students’ parents room to complain. I have found some monologue books that my liberal community would have had trouble with.  You just have to be able to justify any piece in whatever book you choose. Since I’ve already covered my Spoon River character analysis in detail, below I’ve provided brief descriptions of each day of the new assignment with links to my Spoon River blogs so that  you may refer to them for more assistance. This way, I don’t sound like a broken record typing the same information again.Day One: As these were modern day situations, not much time was spent on a discussion of the pieces. See <a title="February 19 blog" href="item/226724" target="_blank">February 19</a> blog. Day Two: Everyone had made their selections and written their paraphrase. They started the memorization process and began working in their <a title="Monologue Analysis Work Sheet" href="item/229621" target="_blank">Monologue Analysis Work Sheet</a>. See <a title="February 19 blog" href="item/226724" target="_blank">February 19</a> and <a title="March 3 blog" href="item/227602" target="_blank">March 3</a> blogs.  Day Three: The students read their piece as well as their paraphrase. The rest of class time was spent working on memorization. See <a title="March 3 blog" href="item/227602" target="_blank">March 3</a> blog.Day Four: This was the <a title="Memorization Tips" href="item/226722" target="_blank">memorization</a> day — remember the <a title="Warm-up Excercises" href="item/227602" target="_blank">exercises</a> from March 3.  I then selected half of the list of tasks and people (combining the two for a one day assignment).  I made sure that the students did not get the same activities. See <a title="March 3 blog" href="item/227602" target="_blank">March 3</a> and <a title="March 19 blog" href="item/228973" target="_blank">March 19</a> blogs.Day Five: Everyone presented their piece with a task or as a person. Again do not forget the <a title="Warm-up Excercises" href="item/227602" target="_blank">exercises</a>.Day Six: Today they presented their piece as one of the three things they answered in their analysis work sheet—color, object, animal--and turned in the analysis. See <a title="March 19 blog" href="item/228973" target="_blank">March 19</a> blog.Day Seven: Today we did the final presentation with costumes and props. 10 application/xml false character analysis character analysis ten day workshop character developement assignments drama class assignment ideas drama class character work drama class ideas in-class character assignments in-class character development Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 edassist 63.255.31.98 false true false false true 218193 false false true false false false true 203097 blog blogsite/ContemporaryDrama/web