Search this Site:

A Level Drama and Theatre

Drama is life with the dull parts left out.
Alfred Hitchcock

Choose A Level Drama and Theatre at St Edmund’s College, and develop and channel your creativity to become a confident storyteller and communicator.

Our approach to drama and theatre studies draws on the natural human interest in storytelling and we use drama to explore the world around us. Through this course you will reflect on current events and cultural heritage and discover new, inspiring ways to represent the issues that connect us all.

Enrichment opportunities at St Ed’s include:

Head of Department Mrs N Schiff
Syllabus Eduqas

 

Course structure

This course is divided into three components:

  1. Theatre workshop
  2. Text in action
  3. Text in performance

Assessment for all three components is completed at the end of Rhetoric II (Year 13).

 

Theatre workshop assessment

Students will be assessed on either acting or design and will participate in the creation, development, and performance of a piece of theatre, this will be based on a reinterpretation of an extract of text chosen from a list supplied by Eduqas.

Text in action assessment

Students will be assessed on either acting or design and will participate in the creation, development, and performance of two pieces of theatre based on a stimulus supplied by Eduqas:

  1. A devised piece using the techniques and working methods of either an influential theatre practitioner or a recognised theatre company (a different practitioner or company to that chosen for component 1)
  2. An extract from a text in a different style chosen by the student.

Students that choose acting, will perform live for the visiting examiner.

Students that choose design must give a 5-10 minute presentation of their design to the examiner.

All students will then produce a process and evaluation report within one week of completion of the practical work.

Text in performance assessment

Written examination with sections A and B:

Students will answer two questions based upon two different texts, one written pre-1956 and one written post-1956.

Clean copies (no annotations) of the two complete texts must be taken into the examination.

Section C

A question based upon a specified extract from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, adapted by Simon Stephens.

Details of the 10 – 15-minute extract will be released during the first week of March, in the year which the examination is to be taken.

Set texts and practitioners

 

During the course students will study a range of different theatre practitioners and play texts. Students will explore how the social, historical, cultural and political climate influences theatre.

Most of all, we will consider the question: why this play? Why now? Why this audience?

Set texts and practitioners that may be explored include:

 

 

Unit 1: Text workshop Unit 2: Text in action Unit 3: Text in performance
  • Stanislavski with Saved (Edward Bond)
  • Brecht with Caucasian Chalk Circle (Brecht)
  • Artaud with 4:48 Psychosis (Sarah Kane)
  • Kneehigh Theatre with The Red Shoes (Kneehigh)
  • DV8 / Frantic Assembly with Girls Like That (Evan Pacey)
  • Peter Brook with A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)
  • Metamorphosis (Kafka, Berkoff)
  • Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)
  • London Road (Alecky Blythe)
  • Bouncers (John Godber)
  • Find Me (Olwyn Wymark)
  • Antigone (Sophocles, Jean Anouilh)
  • Cloud Nine (Caryl Churchill)
  • Earthquakes in London (Mike Bartlett)
  • The Visit (Friedrich Durrenmatt)
  • Woza Albert! (Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema, Barney Simon)
  • Frankenstein (Nick Dear)
  • Othello (William Shakespeare)
Pre 1956

  • The Trojan Women (Euripides)
  • As You Like it (William Shakespeare)
  • Hedda Gabler (Henrick Ibsen)

Post 1956

  • Saved (Edward Bond)
  • Racing Demon (Davide Hare)
  • Chimerica (Lucy Kirkwood)

 

Key skills developed
Performance skills Working with others
Creativity and imagination Problem-solving
Communication Textual analysis and interpretation
Independent learning

 

 

A Level Drama and Theatre develops team skills, empathy and self-confidence, as well as being a strong academic discipline. It nurtures several skills essential for careers outside the arts such as management, for example, or any context in which strong interpersonal skills are important.

Future pathways

As well as preparing students who wish to apply to traditional acting and drama schools, the course is also useful for other career paths.

Universities offer Theatre and Drama degrees as single honours or combined courses. Some institutions offer creative or performance arts degrees where theatre can be combined with other arts subjects such as film, music, dance, art, design and photography.

Students may also follow careers in stage management, theatre administration and theatre production. Drama and Theatre skills can be used in education, therapy, community work and in the expanding leisure and media industries.