Week 2 of 5

Role, character and choosing a real issue

Session 1 · CREATE: Experiment

Building a character

8 minWarm-up: walk as if led by your nose, your chest, your knees. How does each change the character?
15 minStatus game: draw a playing card (1 = low status, 10 = high status) and improvise a shop scene without showing your card. Can the audience guess?
15 minRole on the wall: draw an outline of a character. Outside, write what others see (age, job, clothes, how they walk). Inside, write what they feel and want.
12 minHot-seating: one person sits in role while the group asks questions. Answer as the character, not as yourself.

Session 2 · CREATE: Experiment

10 minLook at the issue wall. Vote with sticky dots for issues that are real, local, and that you could invite someone to see.
20 minIn your devising group, research your issue: talk to people it affects (a short interview), find two facts from a trusted source, take photos of the place.
15 minImprovise: act out three quick scenes that show the issue from different people's points of view (a child, a parent, a business owner, the land).
5 minPīwakawaka asks one question about whose story your play will tell. Write your answer in your diary.

Getting started

Create one character with the role-on-the-wall template and answer three hot-seat questions.

Stretch

Create a character who disagrees with you about the issue, and hot-seat them honestly without making them a cartoon villain.

Checkpoint

Each group has an issue, two facts, one interview, and at least three characters with clear wants.

Activities for this week

Role on the wall and hot-seating: How do you get inside someone else's head?
Status cards: How do people show who has power without saying it?
Issue investigation: What is really going on with our issue, and who does it affect?

Useful this week