USING QUIZ APPS TO HELP LEaRNERS UNDERSTAND THE GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES OF A PLAY
A primary objective for me when working on a dramatic text with a group of actors-in-training is to help them forge a practical relationship with the given circumstances of the play, the non-negotiable facts that the writer offers us that can provide a solid and specific framework for interpretive possibilities.
I’ve found that a playful way of helping students exercise their ability to spot ‘the givens’ in a play is through creating a given circumstance quiz, which we will play together in teams at the outset of rehearsals. The image below left is the first page of a GC quiz that I created for a group rehearsing Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Learners are invariably surprised at how much information is available within a play to support their interpretive choices and they also begin to see the world of the play in a more vivid and tangible way.
The image above right is an example of how GC quizzes such as this can help learners to organise their character’s ‘givens’ in a systematic way, thus inspiring interpretive choices that are supported by textual evidence. Concurrently with this work, we’ll engage in ‘floor work’ practical exercises that offer the learners the opportunity to live through and build upon the given circumstances that they have discovered, develop an internal and emotional understanding of the character, and nurture their appetite for authenticity of behaviour.