2001: Australian National Playwrights' Conference - Drama Teachers Studio

 Drama Teachers Studio, directed by Timothy Daly.  Australian National Playwrights' Conference (ANPC), Burgmann College ANU April 18-21.

    "He's brilliant" whispered Robert Schneider, as I sat next to him on Day 2 of the Drama Teachers Studio.  After an hour, it was an accolade for Timothy Daly I could not deny.  If only I had had this detailed professional play-writing training available when I was teaching drama.

    At last I was hearing not the old purely literary analysis of plays, which according to the 9 drama teachers from NSW, Tasmania and South Australia is still too common, but how "exposition" means "you make clear the status quo" as the play opens - in words, or in mime; and then you create a "disturbance!", and so you begin the "major action/problem/dilemma".  And then you "complicate" the action with a "new action/new decisions/new reactions" and create a change of direction, until a "turning point" (for good or ill) is reached, and there are three climaxes: for the narrative, for the characters internally, and for the meaning.

    So the denouement, which I always thought was the slack bit after the climax to get to the end as quick as possible, becomes the key to dramatic meaning: how it ends makes all the difference.  And how my short experience with Daly ended made the point, as teachers performed the short scripts they had written on Day 1.  I saw all comedies, but no tragedies here: cleverly crafted pieces already, and 2 more days to go.

    Daly's teaching was itself a model for these teachers.  By experiencing the role of students in such a creative, intensive class, Schneider (St Aloysius' College, Sydney), Elizabeth Surbey (Sydney Girls' High), Stephen Goldrick (St Andrews Cathedral School, Sydney), James Fischer (St Paul's College, Walla Walla NSW), Victoria Lewis (Killara High, Sydney), Melinda Boston (Norwood Moriatta High, Adelaide), Kris Plummer (Bankstown Grammar, Sydney), Julie Waddington (Kingston High, Tasmania) and Lesley Christen (Santa Sabina College, Strathfield, Sydney) were sure that they could take back, and put into practice, the writing skills Daly had to offer.

    These 9, some with partial support and some entirely self-funded, are surely the vanguard, flying the flag for the generation of drama teachers who can no longer be seen as self-indulgently playing games.  Their creativity in the classroom is now being recognised and professionally developed at the ANPC, the theatre industry's fermentation plant. 

Now that the opportunity is there, it's time for education, especially government departments (look at the schools represented this year), to take the ANPC on board.  And may I say, especially in Canberra. 

It was Julie Waddington who voiced on behalf of everyone in the Drama Teachers Studio how important it is, rather than being a teacher who is an artist on the side, "to be valued as an artist who teaches". 
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra