Assuming you have ten weeks to develop your piece, your time might be used in the following way:
Week 1
Improvisations around stimulus. Research on stimulus (if appropriate). Decide on style. Building the ensemble. Discuss creating and rehearsal process. Do as much research as you can during the first three weeks of the process. This is the time where you are likely to be experimenting and therefore not needing to do much work on the piece itself in between rehearsals, such as learning lines. Once you have decided on the theme/s likely to appear in your piece, research them, and make sure you allocate time to share your findings. Also, do not forget to look into which theatre practitioners are likely to influence you. Again, you will need to research their work.
Week 2
Share your research. Decide on where the piece is going. Maybe the full storyline. Maybe a strong definition of characters. Begin research on themes.
Week 3
Continue improvising. Individual character work. Character profiles. Research on practitioners suited to the piece.
Week 4
Set the story line and outline of the piece. Begin CREATING the piece. Order of scenes. What happens in each scene. Begin scripting. Start thinking of set and costumes.
Week 5
First drafts of set and costume designs. Continue creating the piece. More character development. Character-led improvisations which will lead to development of plot.
Week 6
Begin rehearsals. Continue Development.
Week 7
Final set and costume designs. Purchase or identify set and costume elements. Continue rehearsing and development. Ask people to be your “outside eye”.
Week 8
Rehearsals. Define scene changes (if applicable).
Week 9
Have written down the final script. Run-throughs. More rehearsals.
Week 10
Tech Rehearsal. Dress Rehearsal (x2 if possible) Performance!
Once a schedule has been created, suggest that it is revised at the end of each week. If a group manages to hit on a wonderful storyline on day 2 of Week 1, then maybe they can start detailed character work earlier on so they can give themselves some more rehearsal time. Devising is not only group specific, but project specific too and the process varies continuously.
At the end of Week 1, ask the students to discuss how they envisage carrying out the creation and devising process as a group. Will each member be responsible for a session? Will they want a tutor to run a session on Character Development so that all group members can work on character at the same time? Similarly, ask them to discuss who will be running the warm ups for each session. For some sessions they will need longer warm ups than others, but you should encourage them to always do SOMETHING together, even if it is a quick game of tag to get them all making physical contact with each other before beginning each rehearsal.
Just as it is paramount to schedule an exercise to bring everyone together at the beginning of the session, it is vital to wrap up the session too. Five minutes at the end of each session to reflect on what has (or hasn’t) been achieved are very useful, as is making sure that everyone agrees on what the next steps of the process are and what shape the next session will take.
Your Handy Companion to Devising and Physical Theatre 