DramaQ&A by dot point

Acting skills and concepts: the vocal, physical, characterisation and interaction skills the acting option assesses, and the concepts (objective, motivation, status, given circumstances, subtext) that build a sustained, truthful role from a text.

Design skills and concepts: the design option's craft - developing a design concept and realising it through set, costume, lighting, sound, props and make-up - so that the visual and aural world of a production communicates an interpretation to an audience.

Developing performance concepts from text: using research and advanced textual analysis to interpret a play - its meaning, themes, structure, characters and theatrical demands - and to arrive at a coherent performance concept that governs the realisation in any option.

Directing skills and concepts: the director's craft assessed in the directing option - interpreting the text, developing a directorial concept, blocking and use of stage space, proxemics, pace and rhythm, and working with actors to realise a unified production.

The Performance component (50 marks): an overview of the practical coursework in which a candidate chooses one option - acting, directing or design - and uses research, textual analysis and rehearsal to realise a coherent performance concept for a text in front of a visiting assessor.

Analysing a professional production: reading a live theatrical event for how its staging, set, lighting, sound, costume and acting created meaning and impact, and forming a supported evaluation of its effect on the audience.

Analysing a theatre practitioner's contribution: isolating and analysing the specific choices of one practitioner - an actor, director or designer - in a professional production, and judging how those choices shaped the meaning and impact experienced by the audience.

The Assignment task (20 marks): researching, investigating and analysing a professional theatrical production and the work of at least one practitioner, then answering one of two set questions under controlled conditions using a 250-word resource sheet.

Referencing and academic conventions: citing primary and secondary sources accurately, quoting and integrating evidence, compiling a bibliography, and presenting the dissertation in formal academic register so the argument is properly supported and free of plagiarism.

Research and the line of argument: gathering and evaluating primary and secondary sources on a drama topic, framing a research question, and structuring a sustained, evidenced argument that engages a practitioner and reaches a reasoned conclusion.

The project-dissertation (30 marks): an overview of the independent written research project in which a candidate investigates a drama topic engaging with at least one influential practitioner and presents a sustained, referenced argument of 2,500 to 3,000 words.

Brecht and epic theatre: the techniques of the Verfremdungseffekt (alienation), the gestus, episodic structure, direct address, song, placards and visible theatricality, designed to keep the audience critically distant and thinking about the play's social and political argument.

Physical and experimental theatre: the traditions beyond naturalism and Brecht - Artaud's theatre of cruelty, Grotowski's poor theatre, the physical and ensemble work of Lecoq, Berkoff and devising companies - that make meaning through the body, image, ensemble and total theatricality.

Stanislavski and naturalism: the system of psychological realism - given circumstances, the magic if, objectives and the through-line of action, emotion memory, units and the truthful building of a believable character from within - and how it shapes acting and directing.

Studying influential theatre practitioners: how the theories and methods of key practitioners (such as Stanislavski, Brecht and the physical and experimental traditions) shape acting, directing and design, and how to apply a practitioner's approach to a performance concept and to critical analysis.