DramaQ&A by dot point

Exploring an extract for the devised piece: practically investigating one extract from a performance text through the methods of the two chosen practitioners, to generate ideas, techniques and material for the original devised work (AO1).

Component 01 (H459/11 to 14), Practitioners in Practice: the non-exam devising unit, creating an original practitioner-influenced piece as a performer or designer with a portfolio, assessing AO1, AO2 and AO4 (120 marks, 40 percent).

The devising portfolio: documenting the practitioner research, the development and selection of ideas, and the creative process of the devised piece, in OCR's permitted written and recorded formats, to evidence AO1 (with AO4).

The devising process: working from a stimulus through research, exploration and improvisation, developing and structuring original material, and refining it into a finished practitioner-influenced performance (AO1 dominant).

The reflective report: evaluating the devised piece and your own contribution, judging how effectively the practitioner-influenced work communicated to an audience, what succeeded and what would be developed, to earn AO4.

Design skills: set and staging, lighting, sound, and costume and make-up, each used as a deliberate choice to create the world of the play, shape mood and meaning, and communicate to an audience.

Rehearsal and exploration methods: practical strategies (hot-seating, improvisation, units and objectives, physical scoring, status work, marking the moment, run and refine) used to explore a text or devised idea and develop performance choices.

The director's role: forming an interpretation and a coherent production concept, then realising it through casting, staging, pace, design and the shaping of meaning for an audience across a whole text.

The structure of OCR Drama and Theatre (H459): two non-exam practical components (Practitioners in Practice; Exploring and Performing Texts) and two written papers (Analysing Performance; Deconstructing Texts for Performance), assessed against AO1 to AO4.

Performer skills: the controlled use of voice (pitch, pace, pause, tone, volume, accent), movement and physicality (posture, gesture, gait, proxemics, stillness) and characterisation, applied to communicate meaning to an audience.

Component 03 (H459/31) Section A: two extended essays on two performance texts studied on a set theme, answered as a theatre maker (director, performer or designer) showing how extracts would be rehearsed and interpreted (AO2 and AO3, 30 marks).

Closed-book recall and timing: building memorised banks of moments, staging and design ideas, and a live theatre record, and managing time across the two written papers (H459/31 and H459/41 to 48) under timed, closed-book conditions.

Command words and the theatre-maker voice: reading OCR command words (Explain, Discuss, Analyse, Evaluate, As a director/performer/designer) and answering through specific, justified practical choices tied to audience effect.

Structuring an evaluative essay: organising an extended response by argument or judgement (not scene order), building each paragraph from a point, specific evidence and evaluation, and reaching a clear overall conclusion.

Analysing design in live theatre: evaluating the set and staging, lighting, sound, and costume of a seen production in specific moments and judging how effectively each communicated mood and meaning to the audience (AO3 and AO4).

Analysing performers in live theatre: evaluating the vocal, physical and interpretive choices of actors in specific moments of a seen production and judging how effectively they communicated meaning to the audience (AO3 and AO4).

Evaluating the directorial concept and impact: judging how far a director's interpretation of a seen production was realised and how effectively it engaged the audience, sustaining an evaluative argument across the whole production (AO3 and AO4).

Component 03 (H459/31) Section B, live theatre evaluation: analysing and evaluating one live production seen during the course, focusing on specific moments of performance and design and judging their effectiveness (AO4 dominant, 30 marks).

Component 02 (H459/21 to 22), Exploring and Performing Texts: a non-exam scripted performance of an extract from one whole text, as a performer (21) or designer (22), supported by documentation, assessing AO1 and AO2 (60 marks, 20 percent).

Performing an extract as a designer (H459/22): realising a design (set, lighting, sound or costume) for the performed extract that builds the world and communicates the meaning of the moment to an audience, grounded in the whole text (AO2).

Performing an extract as a performer (H459/21): realising a role through controlled vocal and physical choices and a coherent characterisation that communicates the meaning of the extract to an audience, grounded in the whole text (AO2).

Supporting documentation and concept for the scripted performance: a concise statement of performance or design intentions for the extract, explaining the interpretation and how the realisation communicates meaning to an audience (AO1 supporting AO2).

Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty: assaulting the senses, ritual and the total experience, non-verbal communication, breaking the audience-stage barrier, and overwhelming an audience to reach beyond rational thought.

Bertolt Brecht and epic theatre: the alienation effect (Verfremdung), gestus, episodic structure, direct address, placards and song, multi-rolling and visible technique, applied to make an audience think critically rather than empathise passively.

Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski: the empty space and the holy theatre, the poor theatre stripped of all but the actor-audience relationship, physical and vocal training, and theatre as a charged, essential encounter.

Choosing and combining two practitioners for Practitioners in Practice: selecting two complementary or contrasting practitioners or companies, applying their methods to research and devising, and combining influences into a coherent style.

Physical and ensemble theatre companies (Frantic Assembly, Complicite): devised, movement-led, collaborative theatre, choreographed physicality and lifts, ensemble storytelling, transformation of object and space, applied to create devised work.

Konstantin Stanislavski and psychological realism: the system of objectives, units, given circumstances, the magic if, emotion memory and the through-line, applied to create truthful, motivated performance.

Context and performance conditions: the social, historical, cultural and theatrical context of the set text and the conditions of its original staging, used to inform (not decorate) a director's and designer's interpretation (AO3).

Designing for the set text: realising an interpretation through set and staging, lighting, sound, and costume and make-up, in the extract and whole-play questions of the Deconstructing Texts for Performance paper (AO2 and AO3).

Directing the set text as a whole: forming a production concept and realising it across key moments through casting, staging, pace and design, for a contemporary audience, in the Deconstructing Texts for Performance paper (AO2 and AO3).

Component 04 (H459/41 to 48), Deconstructing Texts for Performance: a 1 hour written paper on one set text, answered as a director and designer with an extract focus and a whole-play interpretation, assessing AO2 and AO3 (60 marks).