Devising Skills

There are many challenges to overcome when devising a piece of theatre. Where do you start? Where do you end? How do you make the piece effective for your target audience? How do you direct the piece when working with a large ensemble? These are just a few of the questions that you need to think about when you devise a theatre performance.

To overcome these challenges, there are skills that you need to obtain. For example, if you can't work well as a collective, the piece will take a lot longer to devise. Some other skills you need to have when devising theatre are spacial awareness, a sense of rhythm. You also need the ability to work from text, develop characters and explore texts and themes. It is also important to be able to improvise and know how to use physical theatre in performance. Some other things that you should know are how to construct and deconstruct different pieces of work and how to use different speed in performance.

I am confident in using both large and small performance spaces as I have quite a good sense of spatial awareness. For example, when we warm up in class and have to walk around with purpose, I always tend to walk into the areas that are more spacious with less people. This is to fill out and balance the space.

I am also quite confident devising performances with physical theatre as I did a lot of work with it on the 'East End Tales' topic. However, I would like to develop my skills even further and learn more about how to portray different emotions through physical theatre.