Drama

DI FRANCIS

Head of Drama

This year has been a time for the celebration of students’ work highlighted at the three Drama Department Showcase Nights, the 12 exciting and varied plays of the House Drama Festival, the challenging Youth Theatresports Inter-School Competition and the Term Four production of Stories in the Dark. All these events were supported by the TSS Theatre Crew, who also hosted the Gold Coast Secondary Schools’ Drama Festival over three nights. This diversity of opportunities helps our Drama students grow and broaden their horizons. The new Drama Studio provides an ideal space for students to perform their assessment Presenting Tasks to an audience of family and friends. At the conclusion of Term One, Years 10 and 11 students demonstrated their realistic acting skills, while the Year 12 students performed challenging extracts from Absurdist Theatre. The Year 10 class delighted their audience with Scared Scriptless in June. This was an improvised performance based on the skills of Theatresports and challenged students to “step out of their comfort zone”. Finally, at the end of Term Three, Year 9 students performed circus skills while Year 11 explored the trials of Australian immigrants in Scattered Lives and Year 12 performed extracts from the comedy Bouncers.

An essential dimension of the Drama course is to respond, in analytical essay and seminar form, to live professional performances. The Year 12 class rated the exciting staging of Orwell’s 1984 at the Cremorne Theatre as the best play they had ever seen. The students visited the Roundhouse Theatre to view a polished production of the famous Australian play Cosi and visited The Arts Centre Gold Coast to see an Australian Gothic play, Ruby Moon. The Drama Department joined with St Hilda’s to see The Caucasian Chalk Circle and The Apology. Again, the diversity of plays and performance spaces help students to understand the management of dramatic conventions and theatrical techniques. During Term Four students from Years 7 to 10 produced the highly successful Stories in the Dark. Debra Oswald’s play about children forced to fight for survival in a war-torn city reflects that children are too often the victims of adult conflicts. Separated from their families, the characters pool their resources to survive, and they find the only safe place to go to at night, when the shelling and sniper fire are at their worst.

The recipient of the Year 12 Drama Prize was Co-Captain of Drama Scott Bear. He and Matthew Witheriff hosted the House Drama Festival – in-between rushing backstage to perform in their own House plays. Many students this year had the opportunity to stand proudly on stage, or backstage, and share in the process of telling exciting and diverse dramatic stories.