Education Resources
THEATRE VISIT FOLLOW-UP - Hot Seating KS 1&2 curriculum links: links
EN1/ English – Speaking & Listening/Drama, PSHE and Art and Design
Key Vocabulary: Vocabulary
Characters / hot-seating / roles
To encourage pupils to: • • • •
Explore acting techniques, being ‘in character’ and role play Use speaking and listening skills Explore unseen aspects of characters from the show Learn about creating back stories and personal histories to enhance their creative writing skills
Introduction This exercise introduces ‘hot-seating’ which is an established method used by actors to explore a character. The group can rediscover, connect with and invent aspects of the characters from The Pied Piper through this fun exercise. Activities The group are settled as one audience for this exercise with a chair set on the ‘stage’ in front of them. One child is then chosen or picked from volunteers to be the actor each time. From the range of characters from the play, either the child chooses their own or the teacher chooses one for them to play or one is picked at random somehow. At this point the ‘actor’ should think about what voice their character might use, if they have a particular way of moving, any physical mannerisms or specific sayings they may use. It can be a good start if the actor walks ‘on stage’ playing the character and takes their seat in front of the audience. TOP TIP! Stress to the group that they don’t have to mimic the character as it was presented in the unity production but have the freedom to interpret each in their own way. The audience then are free to ask any questions to the actor who answers them ‘in-character’. The questions can be chosen to explore aspects of the character, to explore some of the ideas in the story, decisions the character made, or to clarify any parts of the character that may have been confusing.
Education Resources You can also encourage the group ask about things that are not specific to the story but are more general for example, what are your favourite foods / TV show / pastimes, where did they go to school etc… This way the actor can enjoy creating these aspects of the character and the group are encouraged to think about them in a wider sense. The role of the Pied Piper is particularly interesting for hot seating as little of his personal character is given away and he remains mysterious. Each child may have very different ideas about this character – see below for further ideas in Extended Activities. Extended Activities For a twist – Like ‘Twenty Questions’, the audience do not know which character has been picked and are then allowed to ask questions of them until they determine who they are. Impose a few restrictions; Limit the number of questions that the group can ask to try and reveal the characters identity. If the identity of the character is revealed quickly the exercise can be continued so that both group and actor can enjoy exploring the character more consciously and explore reason and understanding. The Pied Piper – Since the character is quite mysterious, the variety of interpretations of the role could be enjoyed, celebrated and explored in more detail through art work. The class could work in groups or on their own to create, using collage, drawing etc. their own visualisation of the Pied Piper character to create a display or scrapbook.