5 Engaging October Drama Lessons
If you teach drama, October has a way of arriving with entirely too much enthusiasm. These 5 engaging October drama lessons can help when rehearsals are underway, schedules are changing, and your students have Halloween on their minds. Remember, I’ve been you– teaching drama for more than thirty-eight years. It’s my jam.
The school year isn’t new anymore. Your first play of the year is coming up soon. Someone needs a costume that was supposed to have been found last week. Three students are absent. Another has suddenly remembered that she can’t attend the performance you’ve been rehearsing for a month. And depending on the age of your students, Halloween may be looming over your classroom like a full moon.
After decades of teaching drama, I learned that October is not necessarily the month to tackle the most complicated lesson in your curriculum. Sometimes you need something different. Especially if for last several weeks you’ve been focused on one part of theater such as acting or technical theater. You need a lesson that is engaging enough to hold your students’ attention, substantial enough that they’re actually learning something, and simple enough that you aren’t at school until 6:00 p.m. preparing it.
So, in honor of drama teachers everywhere who are just trying to make it to November, here are five October drama lessons that work especially well this time of year. Some are spooky. Some are silly. Some sneak quite a bit of learning into what students think is just fun.
Those are usually my favorite kind.
October Is Made for Drama Class
1. Create Suspense with The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe and October just belong together. But instead of simply reading The Cask of Amontillado, I like the idea of turning the story into something students can hear.
Radio theater gives students the opportunity to work with characterization, vocal expression, pacing, atmosphere, and sound effects without the pressure of memorizing lines or mounting a full production. And The Cask of Amontillado gives them plenty to work with: footsteps. bells, echoes, chains create a dark underground setting. Plus, creating an increasingly ominous conversation between two characters pulls everyone in to the play.
You don’t need elaborate scenery or costumes. In fact, that’s part of the beauty of radio theater. Students have to create the world of the story using their voices, sound, and the listener’s imagination. If you haven’t had an opportunity yet this year for the students to create something together, try radio theater. It’s thrilling!
For students who are hesitant about performing, I’ve found that having a script in front of them can make an enormous difference. They’re still acting. They’re still making character choices. But that little piece of paper can provide a surprising amount of security.
And frankly, a good sound effect can convince some middle school students to participate in almost anything.
2. Ask the Big Question with The Monkey’s Paw
If you were given three wishes, what would you wish for? That’s all you really need to ask to get students talking.
W. W. Jacobs‘ The Monkey’s Paw works beautifully in October because it has all the suspense students expect this time of year, but underneath the creepy story is something much more interesting.
What happens when we get what we think we want? That’s a pretty sophisticated question.
Students can explore foreshadowing, mood, character motivation, consequences, and suspense while performing the story through radio theater. This is also one of those stories where sound matters enormously. A knock on a door isn’t particularly frightening. Unless you’ve spent the previous several minutes making your audience dread that knock.
That’s theater.
Students begin to discover that suspense isn’t created by shouting, fake blood, or somebody jumping out from behind a door. Sometimes it’s a pause. Sometimes it’s silence. Sometimes it’s a perfectly timed sound effect. I have many memories of teaching students about the beauty of the “pause” or “silence”. Once they experience it, they are thoroughly engaged. Learning that distinction is valuable for young performers—and a lot of fun to teach.
3. Rediscover Frankenstein
Mention Frankenstein to students and there’s a pretty good chance they already have a picture in their heads. Green face. Bolts in the neck. Lumbering walk.
Thank you, popular culture. But Mary Shelley‘s story gives us an opportunity to go beyond the Halloween version of the monster and introduce students to themes of creation, responsibility, isolation, and what it means to be human. That’s a lot to unpack in drama class.
A radio theater adaptation makes the story approachable while giving students opportunities to experiment with voice acting and sound. I especially like classic literature for drama students because performing a story changes the way they experience it. They’re no longer just reading words on a page. Several Language Arts teachers have shared with me how exciting it was for them and their classes to read it with sound effects–it brings the story to life in a way no other medium can.
Of course, someone has to decide how the character says those words. So, too, the director has to determine the mood. The sound effects team has to create the sound of the world around the characters. Those choices turn literature into theater. And if we happen to get a few spooky sound effects out of it in October, so much the better. Want to learn about sound design, pick up this resource: FREE Sound Design Lesson
Put Students in Charge of the Sound Effects
This may be the easiest way to get certain students interested in theater. Give them permission to make noise. You will find that suddenly, you have volunteers! Sound effects are one of my favorite ways to introduce students to technical theater because they immediately understand the challenge: How can we make an audience believe they’re hearing something that isn’t actually happening?
For an October activity, students can create sound effects and use them to produce a Halloween-themed radio commercial. Now they’re learning several things at once. They’re considering audience. They’re writing or interpreting a script. They’re making technical choices. They’re experimenting with timing. They’re collaborating. Probably most important, they’re discovering that the people behind the scenes are every bit as important to a production as the actors standing in front of the audience. Pick up this lesson about sound effects: Halloween Foley Sound Effects
Over the years, I taught plenty of students who didn’t consider themselves actors. Give those same students a technical theater challenge, though, and suddenly they had found their place. That’s one reason I think it’s important for drama teachers to provide opportunities that don’t always end with, “Now get onstage and perform.” There are many ways to be a theater artist.
5. Keep Halloween Drama Circles Ready for That Day
Every drama teacher knows that day. The schedule has changed. The assembly ran long. Half your class is gone. You finished something sooner than expected. Or perhaps it’s October 31 and you’ve looked into the eyes of your students and realized that the carefully planned lesson sitting on your desk doesn’t stand a chance. I’ve been there…
This is when I would reach for something like Halloween Drama Circles. Drama circles are deceptively simple. Students receive prompts and respond to one another in sequence, which means they have to listen, stay engaged, and work together to keep the activity moving. They can practice concentration, vocal expression, characterization, improvisational thinking, and ensemble skills without needing a complicated setup. And sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
Not every successful drama lesson has to involve scenery, costumes, props, technology, and seventeen trips to the copy machine.
I’ve directed more than 325 productions and taught drama for nearly forty years, and one thing experience taught me is this: Complicated does not automatically mean better. Sometimes the simplest activity in your teacher toolbox is the one students remember.
Make October Work for Your Drama Class
October can be a wonderful month in the drama classroom. Students are already primed for imagination. They’re ready for suspense, strange characters, mysterious stories, sound effects, and a little theatrical silliness. Use that enthusiasm. But don’t make more work for yourself than necessary.
Pull out a classic story. Hand students a radio script. Let them create sound effects. Try a drama circle. Additionally, give the reluctant performer a narrator role or put the student who’s fascinated by technology in charge of sound.
Most importantly, remember that a good drama lesson doesn’t have to look like a full-scale production. I think it’s important to demonstrate that to the students. Most of the time in theater we don’t have the funds to make elaborate sets, costumes or props, especially in the school setting. All of us know how to produce a production on a shoe string.
Sometimes the best thing we can give students is a structured opportunity to create, experiment, collaborate, and discover something about theater they didn’t know before. And if it gets you through October with your sanity intact?
I’d call that good teaching.
Check out: The Reasons Thematic Units in Teaching are Successful