The Drama Department at
Mark Rutherford

GCSE Drama

The Drama GCSE will enable students to:

• Recall, select, use and communicate their knowledge and understanding of drama in an effective manner to generate, explore and develop ideas

• Apply practical drama skills to communicate in performance

• Analyse and evaluate their own work and that of others using appropriate terminology.

The course has three core assessment tasks:

Drama Exploration: 30%
This unit requires students to explore a theme, topic or issue through the
application of learning using a variety of drama tasks. Stimuli, chosen
by the teacher, will allow students to deepen their understanding of
the central aspects of the chosen theme, topic or issue and come to
appreciate how the dramatic medium and strategies can be used to
create drama form and communicate meaning.

Students will have the opportunity to make connections between
different stimuli which support the theme, topic or issue and explore
the creative potential of the material. The work produced for this unit
is intended to have meaning for the participants and is not intended for
performance to a theatre audience.

This will offer students the opportunity to:

• engage in a range of drama activities
• explore a range of stimuli chosen across different times and cultures
• make connections and comparisons between different stimuli

Students will produce a documentary response to the work conducted
during the six-hour practical exploration that will allude to the process in
the following terms:

• a reflection on the student’s own work and the work of others
• an evaluation of the student’s understanding of the explored theme, topic or issue
• an evaluation of how the use of explorative strategies informed the student’s understanding of the explored theme, topic or issuean evaluation of how the drama medium can contribute to the creation of dramatic form.

The response can include any form of suitable documentation, for
example drawings, plans, sketches, illustrations, photographs.
The documentary response must be no longer than 2000 words.
Exploring a play text: 30%
This unit introduces students to the content of plays written for the theatre. They will learn how to interpret a play in various ways and understand how a play works in performance.

There should be a focus on the communication of meaning in the play through:

• the interpretation of a play
• recognition of the ways in which playwrights, directors, designers and performers communicate meaning through the medium of drama

• the selection of appropriate elements of drama through the exploration of a play
• gaining a practical understanding of the medium of drama through a play
• evaluating the effectiveness of different interpretations of a play.
• developing performance skills and rehearsal techniques
• developing and realising ideas in response to a play within a group
• using the language of drama to communicate ideas to others
• recognising the ways in which playwrights record their instructions in a script
• applying drama skills to the realisation of extracts from a play

• approaches to developing characters and/or roles
• exploring different staging methods
• understanding the social, cultural and historical context of a play.

Students must have experience of live theatre as a member of the audience. The live theatre could be a performance of:

• the play chosen for exploration
• any other play
• a play performed by peers at the School

Performance: 40%
This unit provides students with the opportunity to:

• demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of practical drama skills through their application to a live performance

• communicate to an audience

The knowledge and understanding will be gained from drama lessons. Work carried out in Units 1 and 2 can form the basis of the skills needed for this final examination performance. Students have the opportunity to show either their skills as a performer or as a performance support student in one performance only.

AS & A2 Theatre Studies

The course is divided into four units.

Year one
Unit one:

This internally assessed unit requires students to explore two contrasting play texts, chosen by the centre, in a practical and active way. At least one of the plays must be explored in the light of a recognised theatre practitioner.

This is an externally assessed unit. The first section requires students to offer either a monologue or duologue. The second section requires students to contribute to a performance of a professionally published play by a known writer. Students may offer either acting or a design form and must also provide a concept of the interpretation of their chosen roles or designs.

Unit two:

This unit offers students the chance to demonstrate skills in a performance
environment. The knowledge and understanding gained during the study of two plays in Unit 1 can now be applied with a view to delivering a performance to an audience.

This is an externally assessed unit. The first section requires students to offer either a monologue or duologue. The second section requires students to contribute to a performance of a professionally published play by a known writer. Students may offer either acting or a design form and must also provide a concept of the interpretation of their chosen roles or designs.

Year two
Unit three:

This unit requires the creation of a unique and original piece of theatre. The knowledge and understanding gained in the AS units can now be applied to a created production. Students will be assessed on both the process of creation and the finished product in the form of a performance to an invited audience.

Students will be assessed on the research and development of their work as well as the final performance in front of an identified audience. They are also required to complete an evaluation on both the process and performance of their work.

Unit four:

This externally examined written unit requires the detailed study of one set play text and one prescribed historical period of theatrical development.

This externally assessed unit takes the form of a 2-hour-and-30-minute written paper in three sections. Sections A and B require students to explore one play, from a choice of three set play texts, from the point of view of a director in both an academic and practical way. In Section C a selection must be made of one from a choice of three historic periods
of theatre history. A live performance of a play from the chosen period must be experienced and evaluated and a comparison made with the original staging conditions of the play.

By Lorna Hughes - Drama