Quick questions on Directing the set text: the whole-play concept - OCR A-Level Drama and Theatre

Start from an interpretation (what the play is about and how you want the audience to feel), then compress it into a one-line concept you can name. For example: "a cold, institutional staging that frames the play as a study in collective fear," or "a stripped, ensemble-driven production that makes the audience complicit." The concept is the test for every later choice.

Select two or three pivotal moments (an opening, a turning point, a climax or close) that let you demonstrate the concept under different pressures. Directing the same concept through contrasting moments is what proves coherence: if a tense public scene and a private one both clearly belong to your production world, the examiner sees a director at work.

In each chosen moment, make specific, motivated choices:

OCR routinely asks you to direct "for a contemporary audience." This means deciding what the play says now and shaping the production, through setting, emphasis, casting or design, so a present-day audience feels its relevance. The contemporary angle must be earned by the text, not imposed as a gimmick.

What is the decisive quality the whole-play question rewards, and why? [2 marks]

Name four tools a director uses to realise a concept across the play. [4 marks]

As a director, discuss how you would communicate your interpretation of your set text to a contemporary audience, with reference to specific moments. [16 marks]