Drama

ARTS FACULTY

🎓  Course TypeElective
🧩  Units1 - 4
🗓  TimingUnits 1 & 2 in Y9, Units 3 & 4 in Y10
⏱  Hours per week3
📚  Prior ExperienceAdvantageous but not required - see notes below
✏️  SelectionPossible to commence study with any of the above units
🧭  Future Pathways                      Excellent preparation for Drama in Year 10, and Years 11 & 12 IB Theatre, TCE Drama and TCE Theatre Performance

Drama provides opportunities for students to:

  • Explore through role a range of human ideas and experiences from many perspectives
  • Develop the expressive skills of voice, movement and improvisation in order to communicate meaning to an audience
  • Develop group working skills of creative collaboration, negotiation, planning and evaluating
  • Develop appropriate dramatic and stagecraft skills to explore and extend the drama
  • Select and use appropriate elements of the art form in order to work towards meaning
  • Use a range of other expressive forms (eg, devised movement, mime, lighting, music, set design) to enhance the emotional tone and meaning of the drama
  • Reflect constructively on drama experiences and their own learning  to enhance future development.
Devised Physical Theatre 'Peter Pan' - Year 10
Devised Physical Theatre 'Peter Pan' - Year 10

The Year 9 and 10 Drama courses build on the Year 8 Drama course but are open to all students including those with no previous experience. Students may choose to study Drama in either or both Years 9 and 10. 

 

 

 

Drama at Friends’ is an ensemble driven subject. Students will be required to work collaboratively and cooperatively, in small and large groups, and actively engage in the course content in the classroom.

 

All Drama units require students to present work to an audience for assessment.

 

'Antigone' - Year 9
'Antigone' - Year 9

The aim is for the students to acquire an increased understanding of the use of spoken language, drama, movement and theatre history. Students will be involved in working creatively with others to explore social issues, attitudes and opinions in order to shape material for presentation to specific audiences. The development of knowledge and skills in speaking, listening and performing will be undertaken to an appropriately high standard. This will be approached through the setting of short-term goals and by reflecting on personal achievement throughout the course.

 

There will be opportunities to increase confidence and self-esteem as students experience success and enjoyment in completing and reflecting on their work. Students will also gain valuable and transferable skills in communicating clearly to an audience, problem solving under pressure and negotiating with others to reach a shared goal. 

 

Students will also attend and view live theatrical performances and develop a critical appreciation of theatre as an art form.

'A Doll's House' - Year 10
'A Doll's House' - Year 10
Ancient Greek Theatre - Year 9
Ancient Greek Theatre - Year 9

 

 

 

 

The course is sequential and is divided into four units. Students wishing to study Drama in Year 10, 11 and or 12 are encouraged to undertake all four units. 

 

 

 

 

It is possible, however, to enrol in individual units. Students selecting single units, particularly in Year 10, having not undertaken units in Year 9, may find the work more challenging. 

Year 9 Units

Unit One

Improvisation, text and sub-text work

Voice skills – verbal dynamics, voice

production

Exploration of a theme through devising activities

Theatre history – Ancient Greek Theatre

Journal writing and written responses to live theatre

Unit Two

Improvisation, text and subtext work

Expressive and stylised movement

Voice work – poetry, prose and play texts

Theatre history – Medieval Theatre and Italian Commedia dell‘arte

Journal writing and written responses to live theatre

Year 10 Units

Unit Three

Improvisation, text and sub-text work, character development

Australian play study 

Theatre history – Elizabethan Theatre and Shakespeare

Devised Physical Theatre

Reflective journal writing

Live theatre analysis

Unit Four

Method Acting – Stanislavsky

Theatre History – 19th Century Realism and 20th Century movements

World Play Study 

Theatre of the Absurd

Epic Theatre – Brechtian Theatre

Reflective journal writing

Live theatre analysis

'A Doll's House' - Year 10
'A Doll's House' - Year 10