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David Porter's Shop

After a career in children's theatre, various teaching roles, teaching secondary drama and performing arts and a period in politics, I now write drama resources and am a senior examiner.

After a career in children's theatre, various teaching roles, teaching secondary drama and performing arts and a period in politics, I now write drama resources and am a senior examiner.
School Productions from Devised Drama
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School Productions from Devised Drama

13 Resources
The full set of how to create secondary school productions through drama devising. A wide range of stimulus starting points and case studies of work that has already been developed to production standard. Try something different from the usual for your school show this year!
Devising Starts
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Devising Starts

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Devising Starts 101 ideas for starting devising or for warm-ups for Key Stage 2, 3 or 4. A series of starters around everyday things, to start students devising with suggestions for developing ideas further. Just one cake, just one headache, just one confession, for instance. Just one word kick starts great warm ups which may well evolve into full lessons all the time developing secondary devising skills.
Devising Starts for Drama
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Devising Starts for Drama

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Devising Starts 101 ideas for starting devising or for warm-ups for Key Stage 2, 3 or 4. A series of starters around everyday things to start devising with suggestions for developing ideas further. Just one cake, just one headache or just one confession are three such from a packed resource of 101 quick ideas to get students started on devising. The ideas stand alone for 15 minutes or could be the basis for a full hour’s lesson. The important thing is to get into the improvisation quickly, in groups and using imaginations to the full.
Devise a School Production!
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Devise a School Production!

7 Resources
Rather than spend hours trying to find the perfect script for a whole school production at the right royalty price that is available in your area on the dates you want, why not devise a show? Use the awesome power of teenage devised drama on a theme or not to create a challenging, absorbing and rewarding production for your school.
Three Steps to Credible Characters
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Three Steps to Credible Characters

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The trio of 3 free-standing lessons aimed at KS3 and KS4 offers teachers angles and ways into encouraging the development of credible and sustainable characters who develop through stress, pressure and life’s experiences through the progress of the play or devised work. There are grids for dice thrown options of who, where, when, why and what happens, plus grids of ideas for shades of character development and a stress grid all of which build to show students how complex people/characters are.
School Drama from Devised Drama
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School Drama from Devised Drama

13 Resources
For the teacher ready to experiment with a school show from student devised material, this has a detailed introduction followed by 12 sections with tips, ideas and frameworks for devising and working up productions on themes, including the 1960s, characters, practitioners, local history, teenage angst, the generations, messages, literature, TV and film and ground-breaking ideas.
School Productions from Devised Drama (12)
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School Productions from Devised Drama (12)

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The 12th and final section of this resource. This one suggests a ground-breaking idea which may prove quite controversial and certainly will be challenging. It should spark off ideas that do not fit the norm. There are also dozens of ‘drama teacher block’ breaking ideas and 101+ ideas to start devising off.
School Productions from Devised Drama (8)
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School Productions from Devised Drama (8)

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Section 8 (of 12) focuses on the drama essential of making stories from characters and worrying about plot after they have been established. Comedy or serious, this is also usable as a drama lesson resource.
School Productions from Devised Drama (7)
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School Productions from Devised Drama (7)

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Section 7 of 12 in total, this one demonstrates how some literature, a TV show or a film can inspire devised work, some of it integrated arts , that leads to effective public performance across the full range of emotions and characterisation.
School Production from Devised Drama (4)
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School Production from Devised Drama (4)

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Using teenage angst - a rich and readily available resource in schools in general and drama in particular. This is Section 4 of 12, identifying how to harness teenage issues into compelling performances.
School Productions from Devised Drama: Intro
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School Productions from Devised Drama: Intro

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Over 200 ideas for teachers to develop creative school shows and productions from original devised drama as a challenging change from using published scripts. This is the Introduction to the whole resource. There are 12 further focused sections. It is mainly aimed at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5, but some of the projects could adapt for KS2.
That First Drama Lesson
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That First Drama Lesson

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Teachers - students are back from half term or starting Y10 or Y11 and you just want a one-off 60 minute easy lesson to get the creative juices flowing again – yours as well as theirs. Learning Objective: To learn or revise how to mark a dramatic moment using a variety of drama devices