Curriculum Portal

neurologyYou need to know

• Ancient Greek theatre used chorus, masks, amphitheatres, and myths, and was closely linked to religion and festivals, particularly those honouring Dionysus.
• The chorus in Ancient Greek theatre had narrative, ritual, and interpretative functions, including narrating, commenting on, and reacting to the action.
• Masks in Ancient Greek theatre communicated character types and enabled actors to play multiple roles.
• Greek theatre was divided into genres such as comedy and tragedy, performed competitively at festivals like the City Dionysia.
• Shakespearean performance conventions included soliloquies, asides, rhetorical language, direct audience address, and limited scenery; performances at open-air public theatres took place in daylight on platform stages that projected into the audience.
• The precise acting style used in Shakespearean theatre cannot be reconstructed with certainty.
• A thrust stage extends into the audience, who surround it on three sides.
• Groundlings stood closest to the stage for a low price and were loud and interactive.
• In Shakespeare's time, women were generally excluded from the professional English public stage, so female roles were usually played by boys or young men.
• Playwrights like Shakespeare had to please the monarchy, especially King James I, which influenced plays like Macbeth.
• Melodrama is a 19th-century style that uses exaggerated acting, clear stock characters, and themes where good defeats evil.
• Naturalism aims to create lifelike, believable performances and situations, influenced by Stanislavski's belief that theatre should reflect real life.
• Emotional memory is a technique developed by Stanislavski where an actor draws on their own past emotional experiences to bring authenticity and truth to a character's feelings.
• Character objectives are what a character wants to achieve in a scene or throughout the play; they help guide the actor's choices and actions on stage.
• Epic Theatre (Brecht) aims to make the audience think about social issues through alienation techniques like narration, placards, and direct address.
• Film is a major influence on modern culture, and each film genre (e.g. action, romance, horror) has specific features that define it.
• Different theatre styles communicate meaning in different ways, and understanding these helps performers make clearer artistic choices.

• Identify key features of Ancient Greek Theatre, including use of chorus, mask, genre, and setting (amphitheatre).
• Perform as a chorus by narrating, commenting on, and reacting to the action, and explain its narrative, ritual, and interpretative functions in Ancient Greek theatre.
• Apply knowledge of Greek myths and traditions when creating performances in the style of Ancient Greek theatre.
• Identify features of Shakespearean theatre and apply them in performance (e.g. acting style, staging on a thrust stage).
• Explore evidence about how Macbeth may originally have been performed and compare this with modern interpretations.
• Create and perform a piece in the melodrama style, using exaggerated gestures, stock characters (e.g. villain, hero), and clear moral conflict.
• Compare melodrama to modern genres like soap operas, identifying similarities in performance style and structure.
• Explain and demonstrate the difference between Naturalism and Epic Theatre using short performance pieces.
• Prepare performances inspired by real-world issues, using naturalistic or epic techniques to communicate a message.
• Analyse and apply the features of different film genres and use them to storyboard and create a clear movie trailer.
• Create an original performance using one of the explored styles and respond creatively to a given stimulus.
• Contribute to peer and self evaluation by giving verbal comments and completing a written evaluation with specific examples and drama terminology.