Chris Donley ran workshop with 2nd year Script Writers
Added on 10 Nov 2008
Chris Donley, Education Coordinator from ‘The Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory’ visited second year Scriptwriting on Thursday 16th October. Chris worked for TV, radio and many theatre companies as an actor for the last 12 years.
The first half of the seminar Chris ran a little drama workshop, which attempted to show that the script is only “one side of a play.” It started off with a warm up of the vocal cords, face muscles and lips – a technique commonly used by actors. This was followed by a task where the participants had to walk around in the room and follow Chris’ instructions to walk either fast, slow or put the arms up in the air or down to the ground, without bumping into each other.
Then he formed pairs and handed out four little scenes, which repeated twice or three times in the seminar group, each with a different emphasis of the tone of the script. After some minutes of discussion the pairs had to act out their scene and the rest of the seminar had to guess what the scene was about – it showed that the same text, acted out differently, can have a completely different effect.
In the second half he gave two volunteers a scene of Betrayal by Harold Pinter to read and act it out at the same time; they were instructed only to act when written in the script. The second time different volunteers where allowed to act when they felt they should. This showed how an actor can give emphasis by speaking as well as moving at specific moments.
Chris also pointed out how Pinter managed to build up a climax within the script and interrupt the flow by changing the subject. In this way the audience feels a sense of unease through the writing.
For a 2nd year scriptwriting students this gave an interesting inside view how an actor works with a given script and a brilliant opportunity to see the next step of the process.
www.sattf.org.uk
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