“Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.” – Willem Dafoe

In drama classes we use elements and conventions to explore a wide range of topics.

In the Year 7/8 Hurumanu we experimented with process drama using conventions such as chorus, freeze frames, interviews, and slam poetry,  to discuss Hauora, in particular the changes and challenges of growing into adulthood.  We had fun with theatre technology by creating puppets and puppet shows about healthy eating. At the end of the year a group chose to learn theatre sports games like half-life and pop-up storybook and we had a lot of fun improvising and telling stories.

Year 9 drama did a lot of skills based work learning acting techniques and how to use the dramatic space. They created characters for their own devised scenes and also did solo script based performances.

"Today we had drama class and played some really fun games to start off with. The first one was simply where you would start walking until other commands were given. Soon enough, the walk was switched with freeze, so when the teacher called walk, we had to freeze and vice versa. Then squat and jump got added and those two were switched with each other. After that we got into groups of two's or three's and had to recreate a given image. It was alright, until we got given the term romance!" - Lauren

"In drama we have been practising our solo scripts. My script is a prince who got turned into a frog. I am a frog prince. I was once a prince but now I am a fly eater so I plan that I’m a bit grumpy and I sit on the rock." - William

They looked at musicals, in particular Cats. They chose a character to research and design a costume for. They made the costume and wore it to perform the opening number of the musical, which introduces the cats. The class was delightfully ebullient.

Year 10 drama experimented: we observed animals - dogs, turtles, and rabbits, to improve our acting techniques. We improvised, creating roles, studied commedia, The Taming of the Shrew, made masks, halloween makeup, set design, and film making.

"Today, a rabbit, a dog, and a turtle were brought in. I mostly wanted to study the dog movements considering that I was focusing on the dog and I studied the way it sat, moved, yawned, coughed." - Kaiden

“In drama, we are learning about improvising so the way we practice improvising is to play games. The game we played was 3 words while we are doing a physical movement. ” - Meagan

“We went through improvisation games using kinetic stuff, meaning we followed along with each other and every action was in response to another action someone did. We also looked through some choreography for Carrie." -Jakita

"For Halloween, 10Drama had planned to make a scary backstage area for the junior social. It was a winding path leading from the entrance of the auditorium, through the backstage area and out behind the auditorium stage.  We used the layout of the backstage area to our advantage - using things like the doorways and rafters to do different effects. I started slumped against the closest entrance to the auditorium, playing dead, then standing up and following them slowly." - Jay

“As you continue to walk this narrow alley, you'd feel the eyes of the stalker, played by Kaiden, burn into your skin from inside his black box. Maybe you'd hear the laughter of our very own clown, played by Meagan, from behind her white screen, hiding how she sits inside the space of her shelves. Here, space begins to widen. Stairs lead you up to Miji's character, who sits atop his platform but before you go, you may feel for the trapped ex-nurse, played by me!" - Sam