Drama Ideas

Small Replica Objects
4:17pm Thursday, 5th August 2010

In our production of “Where The Wild Things Are” we had a life sized sailing boat in which the little boy Max sailed “to the land where the Wild Things are”.  We also made a tiny replica boat that could easily be held in one hand.  This enabled us to pass the boat round the [...]

Building Belief
4:06pm Saturday, 10th July 2010

This month’s drama idea

Building belief

For this month’s bite I am indebted to Dawn Bowden a drama practitioner with tons of experience working with learning difficulties and in main stream settings.  She sent me the story below after receiving June’s Bamboozle bite.  In it she describes some of the strategies she used to build belief in [...]

Shakespeare’s Tempest
12:29pm Thursday, 17th June 2010

Last week I saw a TV documentary on the Black Adder series. I had forgotten how brilliant it was. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was Baldrick’s cunning plans – particularly the one where he engraves his name on a bullet. He has heard that everyone has a bullet with “their name [...]

Finding a Way to Slow Down
9:43am Sunday, 16th May 2010

In these days when emails and texts rule the communications networks I enjoy getting letters through the post.  Last week, however, I received one that was less than welcome.  When I opened it I saw the headline immediately: “Intention to Prosecute.”  I had been caught doing 36mph in a 30mph zone and was being offered [...]

Using props to initiate interest
10:12am Monday, 22nd February 2010

Elaborate settings have their place when using drama but they are certainly not necessary and sometimes distracting.  This Bite idea is very simple and can be set up in less than a minute. 
The group is gathered ready to start – in a semi circle facing an empty space except for a plinth [1] with a [...]

Basic Costume to Use for a Role
2:55am Friday, 15th January 2010

Towards the end of last year I saw a remarkable one woman show at the Arcola theatre in East London. Stolen Voices by clarinetist and actor Neyire Ashworth was one of the most moving and entertaining pieces of theatre I have seen in a very long time. In it Neyire portrayed many characters from her [...]

Tension of Anticipation
2:55pm Monday, 7th December 2009

This is the fourth and final bite in the Raising Tension in the Drama series.  It deals with the tension that we can create by building anticipation.  I’m writing this on the way back from a training day at a school in Middlesbrough.  One of the ideas we looked at during the day is how [...]

Shakespeare with Learning Difficulties – “Special” magazine article
2:33pm Tuesday, 15th September 2009

This is a transcript of the article that appeared in Nasen’s “Special” magazine during the Summer. 
Making a difference – using drama and theatre arts
Christopher Davies is one of the artistic directors of Bamboozle, a company that specialises in working with students who have a variety of learning difficulties.  Here he describes a residency with four special schools in [...]

Teacher in Role
2:33am Saturday, 12th September 2009

A quick user’s guide to Teacher in Role
This will be useful for those of you who are using the drama idea from this months Bamboozle Bite. If you don’t yet receive the bites go onto the website and sign up for the newsletter.  Or if you want to see what you are getting for your time investment [there [...]