Theatre History Unit - 3 to 4 Weeks of Research, Presentation, and Performances

You’ve always wanted to teach a theatre history unit, but you’ve never really found a great way to teach it. Students seem uninterested or not invested in learning about theatre history. Look no further than this 3 to 4 week Theatre History Unit!

This unit give you the flexibility to complete it in 3 standard weeks or use the 4 week enhanced version to dig even deeper into theatre history with your students. In this unit, you will guide your students through fun and engaging activities to teach your students about 6 different moments in theatre history.

This is geared to be a group project with each group focusing on one of the moments in theatre history: Ancient Greek Theatre, Japanese Theatre (including Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku), Commedia dell’Arte, Restoration Comedy, French Neoclassical Theatre (including Moliere), and Melodrama.

Each group will research their moment in theatre history utilizing the BRAND NEW Crash Course Theatre Videos just released! After researching they will create a presentation and perform a short script in the style of their moment in theatre history. Each original performance script is a retelling of the Ugly Duckling tale adapted into all the different genres. Using this kind of performance, students will be able to truly see the differences in each moment of theatre history.

Finally, if you would like to dig into theatre history a bit more, there is a 4 week enhanced version of this unit included on the calendar that digs deeper into the Crash Course videos to include Hrotsvitha, Kathakali and Sanskrit drama, Renaissance Theatre (not Shakespeare), Sentimental Theatre, Spanish Golden Age of Drama, and Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theatre.

In addition to this, there is an included final written exam prompts to test your student’s knowledge further if you wish and review materials, including a Kahoot game and a presentation.

Finally, this unit is filled with fun yet low-risk drama warm-up games to include before rehearsal time along with musical elements for specific performance scripts, actor tips, multiple student worksheets for exploration and note taking, and answer keys and rubrics to make your job that much easier.

In this bundle you will find:

* A day to day calendar mapping out the activities for the day (10 pages .pdf)

* An introductory presentation to the unit (13 slides)

* A Theatre History Exploration Worksheet to coordinate with your intro presentation (2 pages)

* A detailed and thorough guide to all classroom activities including suggestions for classroom management. (7 pages .pdf)

* An Actor’s Daily Notebook worksheet for daily reflection (2 slides)

* 6 multimedia Fact Sheets for each moment in theatre history (2 pages each)

* 6 answer keys for each of the facts sheets for easy grading and teacher guidance (3 pages each)

* 6 full final performance scripts for students adapting The Ugly Duckling to each theatre style with actor’s tips and hints for a successful performance along with music links if needed. (4 to 7 pages each)

* 6 presentation templates for students to use for each topic (15 slides each)

* An example final presentation to show your students an A+ project example (15 slides)

* A short presentation explaining their scene work requirements (1 slide)

*  A Peer Preview worksheet for students to give and take notes(2 pages)  

* A grading rubric for the final performances (1 page)

* A note taking worksheet for students during other’s performances. Two versions for the standard or enhanced version. The enhanced version has multiple video links. (3 pages & 7 pages)

* Link to a Kahoot review game (28 questions)

* Final review presentation for expanded version of the unit (15 slides)

* Optional written final exam (1 page)

In total, this unit will bring you over 90 PAGES of content, 130 SLIDES of presentation material, and more fun in your drama classroom! In this unit all handouts in Google links. If you need Microsoft files, you can download them from the Google links.

For you, the busy drama teacher, all you have to do is print and teach! Everything is now prepped for you! Have fun and enjoy teaching theatre history through this unit. Break a leg!