Task details from the IB Guide 2017
Selecting the play text
Students choose a published play text that they have not previously studied, which they are interested in exploring as a director and which would allow them to successfully fulfill the assessment requirements and criteria of the task. Students should have little or no previous experience of researching or practically engaging with the published play text they select for study.
It is expected that students will consult and refer to a number of play texts prior to their final selection. It is important for teachers to allow students to select their own play text. The key to success in this task is for students to select a text that excites their imagination and that they would be passionate about transforming into action.
The play text must remain unaltered. Students are not permitted to edit, make additions or alterations to the original printed work. They may, however, in communicating their vision for the staging of the selected play text, add as much additional action or introduce additional elements of design if this will help them to realise their vision for the staging. In every case this should be appropriate to the play text and students must clearly identify and justify these additions.
The play text does not necessarily have to be set within the original practice or style for which it was originally intended. Students may wish to set the play in a contrasting practice or style in order to bring out a particular idea or theme appropriate to the work.
Students are permitted to work with play texts written in any language. Any descriptions of plot or direct quotations, however, must be translated into the language in which they are being assessed.
Students must address the context, ideas and staging of the entire play text and not just the selected two moments of theatre.
Discussing live theatre performance
Students are required to discuss and make links to live theatre performances they have experienced as a spectator during the theatre course. Students should identify performances that have influenced, inspired or informed them and should pay particular attention to how directors employed production and performance elements to create effective moments of tension, emotion, atmosphere or moments that communicated meaning in the live theatre performance experienced.
The live theatre performances identified must not be productions of the same play text selected for study in this assessment task. Students are not permitted to write about productions in which they have had involvement, for example school plays in which they helped backstage or local productions in which they performed.
Use of sources
As well as the more obvious sources (books, websites, videos, DVDs, articles) valid research may also include the student’s own practical explorations of the play. Students are also required to refer to theatre experiences they have had as a spectator. All sources consulted must be acknowledged following the protocol of the referencing style chosen by the school and be presented in a bibliography and as footnotes, endnotes or within the body of the text of the director’s notebook.
Structuring the director’s notebook
The director’s notebook, which can be up to 20 pages in length, should be a combination of creative ideas, presented in both words and visuals, along with detailed ideas and explanations. The director’s notebook should be written in the first person and present the student’s personal interpretations, responses, ideas, discoveries and intentions for the proposed staging of their selected play text. Students should be as precise and specific as possible when discussing performance and production elements. The use of subject specific terminology may help to give a sense to this precision.
Students may use any relevant illustrations, annotated text, charts, mind maps, visuals, diagrams, designs and so on. These must be clearly annotated and appropriately referenced to acknowledge the source, following the protocol of the referencing style chosen by the school. When students include any of their own photographs or images, these must also be identified and acknowledged in the same way. There is no lower limit on the number of pages that students can submit for this task and teachers are encouraged to remind students that their work will be assessed on how it best fulfills the assessment criteria for the task and not judged on how many pages are submitted.
The director’s notebook should contain a table of contents (which is excluded from the page count) and all pages should be numbered. The main body of the director’s notebook should be structured using the following subheadings:
1. The play text, its context and the ideas presented in the entire play
2. My artistic responses, creative ideas and explorations for the entire play prior to the forming of directorial intentions
3. My own experiences of live theatre as a spectator and how directors use performance and production elements
4. My directorial intentions for the entire play and the intended impact on an audience
5. How I would stage two moments of the play
Students are required to submit a separate list of all sources cited.
Assessing the task - READ THE BELOW DESCRIPTIONS & THEN READ THE RUBRICS
Students then undertake the following process for assessment.
Theatre in context
• Each student carries out research into the cultural context from which the play originates and/or
research into the play text’s theoretical context, focusing on its style, form, practice or genre.
• Each student identifies the key ideas presented by the playwright in the entire play (such as intended
meanings, motifs, themes or throughline). As the author(s) of the text, the playwright might be one
person, more than one person or in some cases a theatre company.
• Each student documents this in their theatre journal.
Theatre processes
• Each student records their artistic responses, creative ideas and explorations of the entire play text
prior to formulating their directorial intentions.
• Each student makes links to live theatre performances they have experienced as a spectator that
have influenced, inspired or informed them as directors. They explain how directors of these
productions have created moments of tension, emotion, atmosphere and/or meaning. The live theatre
performances must not be productions of the same play text selected for study in this assessment
task.
• Each student documents this in their theatre journal.
Presenting theatre
• To what extent does the student clearly explain their directorial intentions for the staging of the entire
play text, supporting these intentions with a range of imaginative production and performance ideas?
• To what extent does the student explain their intended impact of the entire play on the audience and
explain how their performance and production ideas would together create this intended impact on
the audience?
• Each student explains their directorial intention(s) for the staging of the entire play text, supporting
these intentions with a range of imaginative production and performance ideas, explaining
performance space, performance style and production elements (scenic and technical).
• Each student explains their intended impact of the entire play on the audience and how their
performance and production ideas would together create this intended impact on the audience.
• Each student explains how they would stage two specific moments of the play and explain how they
would use production and performance ideas in these two moments of the play to effectively create
tension, emotion, atmosphere and/or meaning for an audience.
• Each student documents this in their theatre journal.