A Beginner's Guide to Devising Theatre

(Paperback)

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Winner of the 2021 Music & Drama Education Award for Outstanding Drama Education Resource Much of the theatre we make starts with a script and a story given to us by someone else. But what happens when we're required to start from scratch How do we begin to make theatre using our own ideas, our own perspective, our own stories A Beginners Guide to Devising Theatre, written by the artistic directors of the award-winning young peoples performance company Junction 25 and is aimed at those new to devising or wanting to further develop their skills. It explores creative ways to create original theatre from a contemporary stimulus. It offers a structure within which to approach the creative process, including ideas on finding a starting point, generating material, composition and design; it offers practical ideas for use in rehearsal; and it presents grounding in terminology that will support a confident and informed approach to production. The book features contributions from some of the young performers who have been a part of Junction 25's work to date, as well as key artists and companies that work professionally in devised theatre, including case studies from Quarantine, the Team, Mammalian Diving Reflex, Nic Green and Ontroerend Goed. The work of Junction 25 is used to illustrate the concepts and ideas set out in the book. Ideal for any student faced with the challenge of creating work from scratch, A Beginner's Guide to Devising Theatre offers constructive guidance, which supports the requirements of students taking Drama and Theatre Studies courses. The book includes a foreword by theatre critic Lyn Gardner.

Reviews

[A] useful, practical book ... The emphasis, throughout, is on collaboration - an essential life skill ... This book demonstrates just how much drama can contribute to educational development. Any young person who comes successfully through this process will be equipped for almost anything. * Ink Pellet *
The introduction chapters are so uplifting, motivating and stimulating that it creates a real buzz for devising A selling point for this book is that it is not exclusively written for the perspective of teachers; any KS4/5 student would be able to pick up and understand the processes suggested. I like the fact that giving full ownership to students creative process would not be a daunting task with this book at the helm. * Drama Magazine *
Not just one of the best things I've seen in Edinburgh this year, but one of the best pieces I've seen anywhere - tender, true and brutally honest * Lyn Gardner on Junction 25 *
Junction 25 youth theatre company, steered by directors Tashi Gore and Jess Thorpe, have been hailed as one of the finest in the UK, and it's not difficult to see why * Scotsman on Junction 25 *
A Beginner's Guide to Devising Theatre offers exactly what it promises: a bean garden with plenty of other possible itinerary that can be rotated for a serious practical benefit. A guidebook to an empire whose many paths, detours and even dead ends are well known, but in such detail no one has ever mapped one of the possible paths to the center. * Theatron (Bloomsbury Translation) *

Author Bio

Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore are Co-Artistic Directors of Glass Performance. Glass Performance is an international award-winning performance company that gives voice to unheard stories, told by everyday people.