200 Plays for GCSE and A-Level Performance

A Drama Teacher's Guide

Jason Hanlan

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350146648
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

How do I choose a play to perform with my students that meets the curriculum requirements and also interests my class?
What can I introduce my students to that they might not already know? If you're asking these questions, this is the book for you! Written specifically for drama teachers, this is a quick, easy-to-use guide to finding and staging the best performance material for the whole range of student abilities and requirements for 15 - 18-year-olds. It suggests 200 plays suitable for students of all abilities and requirements, providing sound advice on selection and realisation, and opening up plays and playwrights you may have never known existed. Structured in 2 parts, Part 1 consists of 8 easy-to-read chapters, explaining how to get the most out of the resource. Part 2 is a vast resource listing 200 plays suitable for study/performance at GCSE and A Level. The details of each play are set out in an easy-to-navigate chart that offers introductory information on: Play
Playwright
Casting numbers
Gender splits
Ability
Genre description
Brief Summary
Exam level
Workshop ideas
Warnings/advice (where necessary)
Suggested scenes for study
Performance notes including lighting, sound, costume and space

PART ONE

1

About this Book

–‘Can you recommend a play for 21 keen girls and two timid boys that is fun yet serious as they’re a mixed bunch?’

–‘I have a class of 14 boys and three very able girls.’

–‘Six girls.’

–‘21 girls and one boy.’

–‘All boys. No girls.’

–‘Three boys only.’

–‘One lad who’s a bit manic and three shy girls.’

–‘They’re very keen, they all want to act, do costume, do lighting, do very little, do something physical, musical, lyrical, satirical.’

–‘Oh, but it needs to be challenging, yet simple, and preferably pre-19th century but engaging and relevant and topical, and popular and, available in print … You see, my group always get an A* in everything they do because they’re talented and theatrical, quite zany, yet oh so practical, their Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was really quite fantastical, all except for Billy who doesn’t talk and does lights.’

–‘And the Head would like something non-political yet thought-provoking, and … erm … gender appropriate without any bad language, yet funny and dark but no violence, of course, and can we do it in the local woods?’

Does any of this sound familiar? These are just a few I’ve heard from drama teachers seeking advice on selecting the best material.

A Bit about Me

When I was lad of 15, Drama was about doing the school play. The Drama club that met on Tuesday lunchtimes was where kids with names like Tristan and Jason went to eat their sandwiches and avoid being beaten up. There was no O-level Drama, and in my school, ‘Theatre’ was a lesson once a week with an English teacher who got us to suspend disbelief while she marked essays. She never asked us to be trees and wouldn’t have noticed if we had. That hour was by far the best of the long school week, and I decided that I too would like to be a Drama teacher. After leaving school, I got a bit side-tracked by the big wide world for 12 years or so, and by the time I got myself into university, Drama was taken far more seriously. My Bachelor of Education degree was actually intended for Drama teachers! Well, it was the late ’80s by then! I qualified in 1994 and went on to teach in two large comprehensives in the UK, eventually becoming Head of Drama and, later, Performing Arts. Along the way I worked as an LEA advisor for Drama and a teacher trainer. I became a moderator fairly early on, solely as INSET for myself. Although I initially intended to be a moderator for just one year, I enjoyed it so much I did it for 14 more!

Going in to hundreds of other teachers’ schools over the years to see thousands of students demonstrate their skills as performers and designers gave me a privileged insight into what works and why. I unashamedly took the best practices and materials I witnessed and shared them with my own students and staff. Now I’ve gone part-time, I reckon it’s time to share with the wider Drama teaching community!

The first time a moderator/examiner walked into my studio to moderate my marking of my students’ live performances, I was terrified. What if I’d got it all wrong? What if I believed them to be amazing, incredible, outstanding students and they were just mediocre or worse? What if, because they were hard-working and dedicated to my subject, I was blind to glaring faults? What if the weaker ones were in fact great and I’d failed to see it. What if I was wrong? The 21st time a moderator walked into my Drama studio to moderate my students, she had been trained by me and I was a senior moderator. I had conducted over 2000 moderations in schools throughout the UK and Channel Islands, led standardisation meetings for hundreds of Drama teachers, and I was still terrified.

Looking through my records of school visits for the Exam Board I found myself counting: 870 school visits to moderate 2344 performances; 1253 demonstrations of stage make up, set design and props; over a thousand costume designs drawn and realised; more than 10,000 students plus my own, performing, designing, lighting, singing, dancing and making art.

It is important to state that this book is not a collection of my 200 favourite plays with a brief critique! I’m no theatre critic! This is a record of what works for students, a list of plays that enable talent, ignite imagination, and challenge all abilities.

At the start of each exam season I armed myself with a large, crisp new A4 artist’s notebook, into which I recorded every centre visit; marking and writing a justification for every mark I awarded against each performer; recording each performance seen, every design drawn, modelled and realised; making notes on how and why pieces worked and occasionally didn’t. I noted early on that the best work I was seeing had been led by teachers who knew the play well and had an expertise/passion for playwright and practitioner. Teachers who knew their students and encouraged them to share the process of choosing from a range of challenging texts were consistently presenting work of excellence. It also became clear that teachers who had a good knowledge of the specification and shared the language of the marks criteria with their students were providing another vital element.

It is crucial that you, as a Drama teacher, know a play before sharing it with your students. It is equally important that you know your students before you present them with choices (see Chapter 2). The choosing of material should be a process in which students make selections from a pre-selected body of works, with whatever guidance each individual/group might require. My mantra is that there are three things a teacher of Drama must know: the students, the material and the specification!

It is essential that students understand their chosen extract(s) in the context of the whole play. They should be exposed to as wide a variety as possible, but within a carefully considered timeframe and always within the teacher’s expertise.

This book is divided into two parts. Part 1 consists of eight chapters that link with the 200 plays listed in Part 2, exploring how teachers can enable students to succeed in performance exams – by having the best material and advice possible. Part 1 explores the thinking behind the performance exam, from finding the right material for your students to ensuring fruitful preparation and appreciation of a play. Coupled with a good working knowledge of theatrical language and an understanding of what the examiner will be looking for, we can guide students in their choices of the material best suited to their talents and passions.

In this book I will make no specific reference to any one of the main Exam Boards or their specifications. However, I will try to reflect the tone/language they use. OFQUAL requirements are referred to more directly as they inform the requirements of all the Boards. It is the responsibility of teachers to be completely familiar with their chosen specification. If you’re not sure, check with the Board.

Each play in this book is one I have seen on a school visit or used with my own students. If I haven’t included your favourite play, it’s probably because I haven’t seen it. I haven’t, of course, seen everything, and not everything I’ve seen is included here. It is also entirely possible that I have omitted some best-loved pieces or failed to mention a great scene or two. Here, I’m suggesting material that works with 16- to 19-year-olds for the scripted performance element of their exam and not for the school play.

Part 2 is what this book is really about. It offers 200 plays I’ve seen work for performance/design students at GCSE and GCE levels. The list is the result of thirty years of teaching Drama, training Drama teachers and working as a visiting examiner/moderator. The list is not about studying the plays; rather, it is a tool to guide teachers through the challenges of selecting the right material for the right group/student.

Each play is presented in the following way:

	Title & publisher	Title of the play	Publisher of version I used (there may be others)
	Playwright/Date	Playwright/adaptor/translator	Date of first recorded performance
	Casting	Number of Male : Female parts plus observations on gender/casting	GCSE or GCE With a brief note on ability/challenge
	Notes, guidance and considerations for teachers/students	Description: What kind of play it is. Summary: A brief description of what happens in the play. Where: Where the action takes place. Country followed by a description of the location and setting. When: When the action takes place (not when it was written). Themes: The major driving themes of the play (and some less obvious ones). Notes: Observations, specific to this play, on what works well, as well as tips based on what I have seen in schools. Design/tech notes: Advice/suggestions for design students. Some plays may not present much of a design challenge whereas others are rich in opportunities. This is where I make such recommendations. Warnings: An important section. See notes below this chart. Workshop/rehearsal/ideas/notes: Based on my own experience of the piece on my visits, this section suggests some rehearsal/workshop ideas and at times a suitable practitioner. At times the suggestions may seem oddball or contradictory. Again, it’s based on what I’ve seen work. Research: Any research that may be relevant. Resources: Any free online resources I have found with my students.
	Section or scene(s)	A list of suggested sections of the text which produce good results. Scenes rich in dialogue/word-play or the best for physical work. Monologues or Duologues which provide opportunities will also be noted in this section.

The book suggests enabling, trusted material, yet each play comes with a warning section. The warnings given are ge...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part One
• 1 About this Book
• 2 Knowing Your Students and the Skills Audit
• 3 Which Play?
• 4 Design Options
• 5 Performance Exams (The Bottom Line)
• 6 Performance Spaces
• 7 Shakespeare
• 8 The Language of the Theatre
• Part Two
• Listing of 200 Plays
• Index of Plays
• Index of Playwrights
• Copyright