Catalogue of Critical Creativity

 Creating with Words: Blackout Poetry

My theatre students could blackout monologues in ways that accentuate underlying motives and objectives of the characters.  This will help students creatively get to the heart of what these characters are saying and help them understand that the remaining words of the monologues are meant to fulfill a core desire. 

Creating with Images: Minimalist Poster

After a lesson on plot and conflict resolution structure, students could create minimalist posters that symbolize different terms concerning the elements of a story (rising action, climax, inciting incident, conflict, etc).  This activity can help my theatre students learn how to be brief and concise in their designs as well as solidify their understanding of key terms.

Creating with Sounds: Soundtracking the Moment

To demonstrate the importance of sound and music in setting the tone of a performance, I could have students perform contentless scenes to three different soundtracks of their choice.  They would experience as audience members how they are affected by the mood that sounds creates, and they would experience as actors how different sounds can alter the same performance. 

Creating with the Body: Tableaux Repreaux

This activity could be a great way for my theatre students to quickly learn the plot of a play.  After studying a play, or reading through a script that we will perform for a show, we can go act by act as a class or in small groups creating tableaux of significant scenes/moments of the play.  Besides helping the students cement the chronological order of events of the play in their minds, this activity could also be a good way to higlight the importance of stage positioning, gestures, and physicality.

Creating with Stuff: Metaphorical Fashion

This could be a fun way for students to explore both character traits as well as costume design.  They could use a costume design template to create a costume for a character, only, insead of clothing them with just accessories, they clothe them with character traits.  For example, they can draw on some high heels and label them "pride," or draw some gloves on their character and label them "deceit," etc. As they make connections between character traits and clothing/elements of design, they will learn the importance of creating costume designs that are intentional and symbolic.

Creating with Social Media: Fauxial Media Profiles

I think an interesting activity would be to have students create social media profiles of Shakespeare characters.  They could explore their personality, their relationship with other characters, what their likes and dislikes would be, what emojis they would use, what profile picture and cover photo they'd set, and make many more creative choices that would help them understand these characters within a contemporary context.