Exploring character
The following drama conventions and technologies are useful in exploring and developing character:
- Role on the wall
- Hot seating
- Telephone conversation
- Voices in the head
- Endowing
- Mantle of the expert
- Costuming
Role on the wall
In this convention, a body outline is traced onto a large sheet of paper, and then pinned to the wall. Information about the role’s appearance and physical traits are recorded around the outside of the figure. Information about the role’s thoughts, feelings, likes, and fears are recorded inside the figure. Additional information about the character, learned as the drama progresses, can also be recorded on the role on the wall.
Hot seating
A student using this convention enters the performance space in role and sits in a designated chair (the hot seat). Other students question the hot-seated role about the drama. These questions can be prepared before the hot seating begins. The student in role must work to behave and respond as the role rather than as himself or herself. Hot seating can elicit basic information about a role, such as the character’s age or where they live. It also allows the student in role to reflect on the character’s situation and develop a sense of how that character responds to others.
Telephone conversation
In this convention, students sit back to back and improvise a telephone conversation. The conversation can be used to explore either character’s thoughts about a situation or about other characters in the drama. It may reveal news or information known by one but not the other character or known by the audience.
Voices in the head
While the student playing a character remains frozen, other students voice the thoughts of the character at a moment of conflict. Several students can give voice to the character’s possibly conflicting thoughts and feelings.
Endowing
This convention is used to gift a character (which the group has created) to an individual student. The individual must then take on, develop, and play that character. A character may be endowed during an improvisation (for example, during the Theatresports™ game Endowment, where the audience decide a key quality of the role) or within the context of a process drama.
Mantle of the expert
In this convention, students are endowed with the status of experts who have specialised skills related to the subject of the drama. For example, in a drama about child poverty, students might be endowed as United Nations aid workers.
Costuming
Students create a character or characters for a given context by using items of clothing or costume. The clothing may be used to create a character in a process drama or individual students could choose articles of costume for a character they have already established from a script, and justify why their choices are appropriate to that character. See also poster 3: freeze frame and speaking thoughts aloud.