Le théâtre en anglais en 2ndes 6 et 7

Les élèves de seconde européenne découvrent le théâtre en anglais à travers différentes activités menées dans le cadre de ce projet.
En mars 2016, ils sont montés sur les planches dans le cadre d’un atelier théâtre en anglais animé par deux comédiens de la compagnie Fools and Feathers. Cet atelier leur a permis de pratiquer leur anglais dans un cadre original, et de découvrir un peu mieux le métier d’acteur avant de se rendre à l’Alhambra pour voir une adaptation de The Hound of the Baskervilles par une troupe britannique. Ils vont vous donner leurs impressions dans les articles qui suivent.

The drama workshop

Last Wednesday, it was Carnival day, but not only ! Sophie Brech and Louis Fortier, one British and the other Canadian, but both actors, came to Rabelais’s theatre to offer us a drama workshop. I expected traditional theatre exercises, like having a text and reciting it with emotions and all this. I was surprised when I saw the masks they had brought. There were many types of masks, some red, some brown, some with big noses, some covered all the face, others only the top. To warm up, they said to us “Look at the masks and examine them.“ We did so, and I saw the one I wanted to try. It was brown, covered all the face and seemed a bit sad and tired with its closed eyes. Nobody was interested in it. Sophie and Louis sent half of us offstage. The ones who stayed had to put the masks on their faces in groups of three. Louis explain to us how to become the character represented by the mask : first you close your eyes, then you put on the mask and then you open your eyes but you are not yourself anymore, but another person with another voice and another life. The ones on stage were pretty good, and we switched. I couldn’t wait to put the beautiful mask on my face so I went first. Becoming the new characters turned really difficult : I’m a bit bad at improvisation and I found that becoming another person in very little time was nearly impossible, mostly because I really can’t change my voice. Louis was really dedicated and tried to help us as much as he could. After that, we did another activity with masks. We were a group of six refugees who had come to France. Sophie found us some clothes to be in the shoes of our character. We had to create the identity of our character, their names, surnames, their native countries, their voices and all that, it was almost as hard as for the other exercise because it was another type of improvisation. Maybe harder because we had to talk more, and showing emotions is not really easy with masks. We also had to interact and say yes to every proposition, even if it was not what we had decided for our character.
To conclude, I liked the drama workshop, mainly because of the two actors who were really involved, but also because it was an experience with improvisation and maybe it will help me for the oral test of European Certification tomorrow.
Justine

Drama workshop

Hi everyone ! We are here to talk to you about a drama workshop we did last week. Two actors named Sophie Brech and Louis Fortier (they are British and Canadian) spent three hours with our European English class in the school’s theater. The activity’s goal was to work with costumes and masks.
Before starting, we thought we would have to improvise situations or to do some ridiculous things like imitating animals… In fact we warmed-up with funny exercises and we rapidly began the discovery of the masks. We were all immediately involved in the roleplay.
The main activity was to choose our mask and to become another person with a new voice, a new history and a new life (and strange costumes).
It was quite funny but we all have found it really impressive to see how each of us could be totally transformed and made to forget his/her real identity.
It‘s a very good exercise to gain confidence because you are hidden behind a costume so it’s easier to let yourself go.
To conclude, we can say that this experience was very interesting and pretty amusing, we will never forget it.
Lucie and Emma

A wonderful moment on stage

On Wednesday, March 9th morning, just before the carnival, our European class went to the theater of the school to take part in a drama workshop. Some of us were half asleep, other seemed bored but we all forgot our worries and quickly went on stage.
“Let’s warm up” said Louis Fortier, a Canadian actor who was our teacher for three hours with his wife Sophie Brech. They belong to a world touring theatre company and were very, very enthusiastic.
All in a circle, we started by awakening our reactivity in a fast “zip-zap-bong” exercise. Then we shouted as one :
“WHO’S THE BOSS… ? NOT YOU, NOT YOU, NOT YOU…..ME. I’M THE BOSS”
And we continued like that, caricaturing a thief in a big shop or describing second by second obvious actions like opening a door :
“BIG DOOR”
“MY DOOR”
“I WANT TO OPEN A DOOR”
“I OPEN THE DOOR : CLIC CLAC CLIC CLAC”
“ET VOILAAAAAAAAAAAA…”
It was quite fun and got funnier and funnier when the two actors showed us their masks. They were crazy about masks and had a lot of them. They explained almost everything we should know about them : how to wear them, how to hold them, how to express things just by changing our voices, our names and our personalities.
It was quite interesting to see how magical it was. At the moment we were wearing a mask, we immediately embodied another character. The public (our classmates) laughed a lot and everybody enjoyed the lesson. We didn’t see the time go by.
Finally, I really want to thank Sophie, Louis and Mrs. Pavard for allowing us to have a great moment. If tomorrow somebody asked if I want to do it again, I would have one answer : Yes.
David

Last week, in English class we had a theatre workshop with a British and a Canadian actor. Before going there, I thought it would be a traditional theatre lesson but as time passed the actors were getting funnier and made theatre interesting. They had a different conception of theatre and knew how to talk about it.
What was different from classical theatre was that the actors worked a lot with masks and fancy dresses. Working with masks gives us a character and each mask has a different shape and we learned to play with them. As the actors gave their advice on each character it was really interesting to see their way of thinking.
Before working with masks and fancy dresses, we made a little warm up and one of the exercises consisted in repeating the gestures of Louis and I thought that it was really funny. It made us less shy.
Moreover, their good mood made us more confident, and wearing masks also helped us to gain self-confidence. I think it was a great experience and it was really enriching for everyday life.
Marion