Stimulus used Activities used in devis-ing activities

Performance strategies applied (plot, narrative, action, se-quence of events, charac-ter/role development and delineation, scripting, editing, dialogue selection, structuring episodes/scenes, use of different dramatic elements, design and technical aspects.)

What would work well?(selection and rejection of material

What wouldn’t work well?(selection and rejection of material

Performance potential (communication of ideas, intentions and style. Audi-ence awareness)

road picture This picture showed a man on a road stand-ing over another fig-ure on the ground. at the end of the sark dingy road there was a group looking in the direction of the first man. we discussed what could be going on in this picture and I mentioned its simi-larity to the land-scapes described in Cormack Mccarthy’s “the road” (novel) thinking about the subject of journeys. The picture made us consider the long physical journeys, pil-grimages, journeys to escape harm or threat and even the metaphorical journey

This offers scope for a range of per-formance tech-niques. The metaphorical jour-ney through life stood out to us as an opportunity to use narration and cross cutting to show the passage of time and chang-ing of location

the story of the journey through life could provide strong points for narration. it allows for a range of other techniques.

the idea is very broad and needs a great amount of development

the idea of a metaphorical jour-ney presents an op-portunity for us to use a wide range of techniques to cre-ate a very three di-mensional perfor-mance with very deep and heartfelt themes

through life and into the afterlife. We used forum theatre in which we placed our-selves on the road and thought about background leading up to the picture. this helped us to think about the possible journey this could suggest

r kelly song The song, worlds greatest provoked a discussion about dreams and partic-ularly the dreams of those involved in the performing arts industry. we thought that we could use the song perhaps in a multi-media piece. using the song to show a lust for success. be-cause we didn't want to make the piece too cheesy, further discussion helped us decide that if we where to pursue this idea we would focus on the

this offered an op-portunity to use media in our per-formance. we could use the song in the background. per-haps including a dance piece, or even using the lyrics within the narration

the lyrics of the r kelly song are very relevent and suit the piece well. the song could give the piece an inspira-tional feel and help the audience connect through multimedia

using the song in this way could present a risk of the piece becoming too cheesy/childish. this is something we are very much trying to avoid

pursuing the idea of an emotional multimedia piece gives us the oppor-tunity to use move-ment and vocal skills as well as ac-tion

gritty harsh reali-ties of the competi-tive nature of the industry.

fame fame is an example of an existing piece very similar to what we where going for. watching it made us think about the harsh reality of the industry and pro-voked me to think about drama school as a setting for the journey to begin.

this gave us the idea that our piece could include a va-riety of acting sin-ing and dancing. this would gives an opportunity to showcase a diverse range of skills

Fame is very simi-lar to the idea we have developed. we can take a lot from this stimulus about the idea of emotion in the jour-ney towards your dreams

fame is also fairly cheesy and is not the sort of thing we are aiming to cre-ate

applying the jour-ney theme to the characters from a performance back-ground allows us to explore our own journeys anfutures, this is very per-sonal to us and we could portray the events of the piece very passionately

Devising Plays - Stimulus table