There are multiple ways to connect drama and literature; the narrative can provide the people, and the place as well as predicaments and tensions. Re-enactment of the known narrative is not sought, but scenes or gaps in the narrative, can be improvised so particular perspectives are examined. In this way the ambiguity and uncertainty which accompanies real living can be experienced and handled.
A list of possible ways to plan drama from fiction is included below.
Take a picture book as a guide – share the tale in stages, preferably through the IWB, stopping intermittently to allow the children to inhabit the gaps in meaning left by the text. The tale will shape and guide the drama and re-enactment is avoided.
Co-author a follow up tale – read the story, and then explore the long-term consequences for one of the characters.
Create a drama based on the opening scenario and visuals – after reading and sharing the pictures from the first part of the text, move into drama mode. Improvise the remainder of the text, examining previous and future action and retaining a focus on the theme and the nature and consequences of human involvement. Read and compare the two texts afterwards.
Prefigure the theme through drama – identify the key theme of the chosen book, and develop a drama around this prior to reading it. In effect the drama investigation is an analogy for the text.
Co-author a new chapter or significant event in the story – during the reading of the story/novel build on the knowledge and understanding of the events unravelled thus far and leaving the narrative behind at this point.
There are multiple ways to connect drama and literature; the narrative can provide the people, and the place as well as predicaments and tensions. Re-enactment of the known narrative is not sought, but scenes or gaps in the narrative, can be improvised so particular perspectives are examined. In this way the ambiguity and uncertainty which accompanies real living can be experienced and handled.
