Drama: Writing a Script that Matters

 The 5 Elements of Drama

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Peter Brook wrote the Empty Space, a book where he explains that theater that is not relevant to the audience, is not interesting to them, it becomes an empty space. In class students were given the assignment of writing a script that had to do with their own student life. For that they were introduced to the drama as a genre and plot as a structure to follow when writing their scripts. Bellow, we show some samples of the work completed by the students.

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ELEMENTS OF DRAMA ASSIGNMENT

Sample Script

Rachel Westhoff, Natalie Kiboneka, Sami Tano

1.      Cast of Characters

a.       Protagonist = Jimmy the student; Antagonist = Professor Scott the teacher; Natalie, Rachel, Sami = other students in the class

2.      Setting

a.       University of Miami; Dooly Memorial Building room 315

PLOT

Exposition

Jimmy arrived to his math class 5 minutes early.   He saw all his fellow classmates putting away their phones and placing their backpacks in the front of the classroom.  Confused, Jimmy turned to his friend Natalie and asked:

J: (confused tone) Natalie, what is everyone doing?

N:  They are putting their stuff away for the test today, duh.  Are you ready for the exam?

J: (panicked)  A TEST!? Since when do we have a test today?

Their classmate, Sami, overhearing the conversation interjected:

S:  Jimmy didn’t you look at the syllabus?  It has all the test dates on it!

J:  I need to go talk to the teacher..now.  Or I will fail this test!

Jimmy hops up our of his seat and approaches his teacher, Professor Scott’s desk.  The Professor just walked into the classroom 2 minutes before and he got rained on.  He does NOT look happy.

J: (frantic) Professor Scott!  I can’t possibly take this test today, I’m not prepared!

PS: This test was talked about on the first day of the class, we even had a review last class!  Maybe if you came to class you would know.  I’m sorry but I cannot make an exception for you.

Rising Action

Jimmy rushes back to his seat, defeated and embarrassed.  The entire class heard Professor Scott call him out on not going to class! One of Jimmy’s classmates, Rachel, felt bad for Jimmy and tried to calm him down.

R: Don’t worry Jimmy, Professor Scott is the worst.  We have three more exams after this one and he drops our lowest score anyways.  You will be fine!

Jimmy looks at her in disbelief.  He is still panicking and not sure if he believes her.

Climax

PS: (directed to whole class)  Everyone quite!  I am going to begin passing out the exams.  You have an hour and 15 minutes to complete the exam.  Don’t disappoint me.

Jimmy gets even more anxious, bouncing his leg up and down.  The Professor places the exam down on his desk with a scoff. Jimmy looks at the test and does not recognize any of the first page’s problems.  His panic gets worse.

J: Oh no.

He flips to the next page, and ah ha!  He sees a problem he knows.  He flips to the third page and the same thing!  His nerves begin to melt away and he finished his test the best he can.  Jimmy has now realized it is okay if he does poorily on this exam, he will still graduate and do well in the class.

Falling Action

The next class, the professor hands back the tests.

J:  I GOT A C!

Jimmy jumps up out of his chair with excitement.  Jimmy has learned he must check the syllabus and prepare if he wants to get an A on the next exam and his anxiety was all for nothing.

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Robert Burns, Sheila McAndrew, Sydney Feyerick, and Shannon Lerner

Sheila is sitting at Starbucks, talking to Sydney about her crazy weekend.

Sheila: Oh my god, I met the coolest guy this weekend. He was so nice and funny. I had the time of my life. We totally had great chemistry.

Sydney: I have to meet him! Do you guys talk a lot

Sheila: Mostly over DMs, but he goes to school here. I got class, see ya later!

Sheila leaves for class.  She walks towards Dooly

Shannon and Robert are chatting near the library

Shannon: How was your weekend?

Robert: I don’t remember much of it, but for some strange reason this girl keeps sliding into my DMs. Never seen her before.

Shannon: I hate when that happens. What’s her Instagram?

Robert: It’s @SheilMcA. Check it out

Shannon: Oh my god, I know her! She’s in my Arts and Crafts class!

Robert: Well then I have to meet her! Set it up! I’m too scared to talk to her in person.

Sheila and Shannon enters the classroom.

Shannon: Hey so do you know Robert?

Sheila: Yeah! We totally hit it off. But we only DM, it kinda sucks.

Shannon: Oh no!

Sheila leaves and goes to the food court for some lunch. Sheila and Robert are direct messaging:

Robert: What are you up to?

Sheila: I’m getting Panda Express for lunch!

Robert: Oh, nice. Me too.

Sheila begins typing. She stops. She begins again but stops.

 Robert rolls his eyes and turns around. He thinks he sees Sheila.

Robert extending his hand to Sheila: Hi I’m Robert. I’m tired of talking online. Do you want to our Panda together?

Sheila: I would love to. It’s so nice getting to talk to people in real life

Sheila and Robert sit down and eat, smiling and enjoying each other’s company

Cast of Characters:

·         Robert- protagonist

·         Sheila- antagonist

·         Shannon- mutual friend of Robert and Sheila

·         Sydney- friend of Sheila

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Abbie Codispoti, Cole Masterson, Olivia Dobrin

It was 7pm in Otto G. Richter Library on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of Finals week. Clark suddenly realized that he was in over his head. There was no way he was going to make an A on his macro-economics final and if he doesn’t, he will lose his scholarship that he worked his whole life to get. Clark decided to text one of his friends in his class, Nancy for some help. Clark texted, “Hey Nancy, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I know you’re very smart and could really use your help studying for this class.” Nancy, who always had a crush on Clark, was ecstatic to get a text from him. She eagerly responded, “Hey, yes of course! Are you in the library? I can help tutor you now!” *Clark quickly packed up his dinner that he was eating and rushed over to the library to get help for his exam*.

When Clark got to the library, their eyes locked, and Clark’s face lit up. He has never felt like this before. Was Nancy the girl he had never thought about, who would help save his scholarship and steal his heart?

After hours of studying, Nancy realized that Clark was not understanding the material and it would take hours of studying to save his grade. They decided to go on a snack break to Outtakes and started talking about things other than school. Clark realized that Nancy was really beautiful, funny, and had so many great qualities other than being intelligent.

After their snack break, Clark and Nancy returned to the library and Clark was suddenly extremely motivated to study for his exam. He thought that he could impress Nancy with his intelligence, he would have a chance to take to take her out to dinner. He had a breakthrough with his studying and suddenly macro-economics made sense!

The next day was the day of Clark’s final. He was extremely nervous but all he could think about was doing well on his final and taking Nancy out to dinner. At 3 pm, Clark took his final and he knew every question! He was so confident leaving the exam that he called Nancy right away and told her the good news about his test. After he told her about the exam, he mustered up the courage to ask her out to dinner at the Rusty Pelican and she said yes!

Clark and Nancy went out to dinner and fell in love and lived happily ever after.

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Brennan, Will, Bryan, Romeo 

Characters: Dave of Parking and Transportation Services (Antagonist), Steve (protagonist) 

Setting: 12:15 on the second Monday of the school year, Red Lot  

Narrator:” It was a hot September day in South Miami, and Steve was running late. This wouldn’t be a big deal on any ordinary, but Steve had a teaching and learning presentation that he had been working on for a week straight. Steve threw his car in drive and sped off towards campus, hoping he could make it by 12:15. He made it to yellow lot in record time, but alas, there was not an open spot to be seen. As a last-ditch effort, Steve took off to red lot, and parked his car… without a permit. He raced to class and made it just in time to present. It was like a 10-ton weight was listed off of his shoulders, that is, until he headed back to his car. He saw it from about 300 ft away, in all of its glistening terror: The parking and services van. He started to run faster than he ever did and knocked on the vans window in a last-ditch effort to plead his case, but the driver, Dave of Parking and Transportation, let but a smile and sped away. 

Steve: “Oof” 

Narrator: And with that, a big oof, Steve sulked to his car and drove home. He opened his email and saw the dreaded message from Miami, fining him $100. $50 for the parking, and $50 for harassing Dave. Steve had no money and had no other choice but to call the office and make explain his case. 

Dave: “Hello, university of Miami parking and transportation services how may I help you?” 

Steve: “I just got a ticket for parking in red lot, but I had no other choice. Yellow lot was full of cars taking up two spots and I only had 10 minutes to make it to my presentation, so I had to park in red lot to make it in time. I know I didn’t have the right permit, but I had no other choice. I even tried to talk to the driver to explain what happened, but he sped off when I knocked on his window. Is there anything else we can do? 

Dave: “That’s funny, I just gave out that ticket.” 

Narrator: “Steve gasped, he was talking to the man himself, Dave. He prepared himself for the worst. What was going to happen? Was dave going to ticket him again? Ake away his yellow lot pass? What came next shocked him. 

Dave: “I’m sorry for taking off on you, I thought you were another student trying to harass me, nobody likes us over here at the UMPTS. I’m sorry about your predicament, I know people park like fools and fil up the lots faster than their supposed to, and you can’t help that. How about I remove that ticket from your account.” 

Narrator: and with that, it the fine was gone. Steve took a deep breath and sat back in his chair to cherish this wonderful feeling. Not only had he gotten out of his ticket, but he had aced his teaching and learning presentation on how to get out of a parking ticket.

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Lesson Plan Sample on Script Writing

By

Molly Halbach, Olivia Dobrin, Kayla Pournazarian, Cole Masterson and Sydney Kramer.

Theme: Storytelling

Objective: Teach students to create a cohesive storyline.

Activity: Have students write and preform a two-minute script. Students should make proper use of surroundings, and creativity should be utilized.

Materials: Camera,

Age: 6-8th grade drama II

Assessment: length of movie (two minutes), quality of script writing (gramatical and spelling errors result in deduction of points)

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Parts of a Good Story

 Lesson by Caroline Kapp

Introduction
Climax
Conflict
Resolution
Rising action
Falling action
Characters



Objective: Teach kids to write a story based on a picture and to express creativity and imagination.



Materials: A picture


Age: 5th grade


Activity: Look at a picture and create a story with the elements of a story


Assessment: Came up with each part of a story. The students can act it out the story that they come up with to the class.



Title: Uncle Sam comes to town



Introduction: Bus bench


A man and woman sit at the bus and are estatic that they just got married. Especially since they fought so hard to be in the relationship.



Conflict/rising action: a woman walks in and asks if they heard about pearl harbor and then two army guys come in and take the husband away saying they need him to enlist.


Resolution: husband enlists in the army


Falling action: husband has to come back because he was color blind but he still showed the initiative to join and help his country


Characters: a young couple, uncle Sam/recruiters, narrator

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Sample Lesson Plan

HISTORICAL TIME PERIODS

Olivia Steinberg

Lesson Plan—in which you use drama as a mean to teach other academic subject.

-    Students will be using drama to enrich their studies of the Presidents in this lesson 

-    Age: This lesson plan is aimed for students in grades 2, 3, and 4.

-    Objectives: The lesson plan aims to enhance students engagement and understanding of historical time periods through drama. This encourages students to rehearse roles and provide a multi-dimensional portrayal of the individual person or time period. This activity, along with its experiences, encourage students to begin fostering their own problem solving skills. Highlighting what school should be, encouraging students to problem solve themselves, rather than being told what to think. This lesson would specifically focus on important information pertaining to the Presidents of the Untied States. 

-    Materials: Teacher provides historical, yet age appropriate, script. Students just need to have a pencil and paper for note-taking. 

-    Activity: The students are split up into groups and are assigned a script with an interview of a former President of the United States. Each student is assigned a specific role to present within their own group and each group will present their interview to the class. This allows for students to learn about their President, but also remember what that their classmates presented. After all the groups present there should be a class discussion where students what they learned, what they found interesting, and presented any questions. 

-    Assessment: The students are to be assessed in presentation of their interview script with a former President. In this sense, looking for participation and efforts in the presentation. This also includes presenting the script historically correctly. The comprehension of the Presidents and the recollection of the mentioned facts will be reviewed during the class discussion. This will provide students with a more personal connection and, thus a deeper understanding and likelihood of remembering the material. There will be an informal teacher observation of student participation as they create their scene, record will be kept in a log.