Forum Theater
Today’s drama strategy is very short, but extremely effective. It’s called the Forum Theater strategy. In this technique, students enact a scene and the audience can introduce new characters at any time. Obviously, this provides a sense of excitement to the performance, but it also forces the students to continuously be synthesizing and analyzing their storyline.
Here are the Steps:
1. Choose a scene from a play that students can act out. Allow all students to read through the scene.
2. Choose several students to play the roles as provided in the script.
3. The students who were not chosen to perform should read through the script and create a character to throw into the scene. They should NOT reveal what they are doing to the students who are rehearsing their parts. The teacher can explain to the students with parts that there will be surprises thrown in and that they must include the surprises naturally into their scene when they arrive.
4. Allow the students to perform the scene and then select students to insert their created character.
5. After the scene is complete, reflect as a class about the challenges and excitement involved in this type of drama.
