Technical Theatre Portfolio Project

Four months into the school year and this portfolio project has brought me to a number of realizations. The choices I made in my Technical Theatre I classes worked well, I feel they lead to a deeper understanding of the elements of design and they made points I had a hard time making in the past. While in my advanced class, I struggled to get a majority of students engaged in the large “Macbeth” project. During this semester, I came to the conclusion I need to fight more for the right to “approve” students for my advanced class. I don’t want my classes to become a dumping ground for students not willing to work. I have also came to the determination that some students at the high school level might not be ready for the “design” aspects of theatre and only interested in becoming more of a technician. This is not necessarily a bad thing, the theatre needs great technical people as well as great designers I just need to find a better way of engaging all involved since I can’t segregate the classes, there is no separation between Theatrical design and

I used a “quiz” as a warm up and had the students draw four lines: Angry, happy, sad, and content. I gave it as a quiz but then went on to show them how many of the students had similar lines, and how we all have an idea of how certain lines might look. This was a fun part of the class for the students as they got to show off the lines they had made and the reasons for making them. This was the beginning of my elements of design lesson and “hook” to get the students interested in the upcoming lesson. After notes covering the other elements of design, I went on to assign a monochromatic collage. I simplified the drawing and only gave one due to time constraints. The students had a total of 1.5 hours to finish the simple outline drawing. Some of the students did an outstanding job, others did not work as hard but all were