LESSON PLAN — EZRA PLEIMANN

Grade/Class: 9-12/Theatre

Unit: 1 Topic: Monologues/ Character work

Lesson Essential Question(s): What is acting? How do I understand a character’s emotions and motivations

TEK(S) §117.315. Theatre, Level I: Materials:

(c) Knowledge and Skill 1. List of warm-up exercises.
a) understand the value and purpose of using 2. List of improve games.
listening, observation, concentration, cooperation, 3. Pint-out of 60 second monologue
and emotional and sensory recall; 4. Quick access to clips of famous monologues
b) develop and practice theatre preparation and 5. Print-out of character sheet
warm-up techniques;
e) analyze characters by describing attributes such
as physical, intellectual, emotional, and social
dimensions through reading scripts of published plays;

Objectives:
1. Define various elements of acting.
2. Explain the use of emotions when developing a character.
3. Apply various acting techniques to a monologue.
4. Analyze a character’s emotions and motivations.

Attention Getter: As students enter the classroom, I will pass out index cards with a random emotion written on them.
I will ask the students to keep their given emotion hidden. Once class has begun, I will lead the students through a
handful of warm up exercises such as simple stretches, tongue twisters, and the game of concentration (I will provide a
category and one by one the students must name something in that category without repeating or hesitating). I will
instruct that while we play these warm-up games, students must act with the emotion on their card. Once done I will
ask the students if they can guess anyone’s emotion. This activity should take no more than five or six minutes.

Improve: I will lead a few improve games to get the students in the mindset of acting. This should be no more than ten
minutes.

Introduction to Monologues: I will start with a basic explanation of what a monologue is, its components, and how it
is used in theatre. I will then show a clip of a famous monologue (example: Taraji P. Henson’s monologue in the film
“Hidden Figures”). I will then pass out an example monologue to the students. Each student has the same monologue.
After were read it as a group, a few students (chosen by random draw) will practice performing the monologue in front
of the class or at their desk. This should take twenty or so minutes.

Take-Home Assignment: For the remainder of the class, I will be explaining the take-home assignment. The students
will choose one character from a list of well-known fairytale characters (example: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood,
Peter Pan, etc.). once the characters have been selected, I will pass out the work sheet. The work sheet as sections
for a character’s motivation, desires, and personality traits. The students will have till the end of the week to research
their characters and fill out the work sheet. This will be a good prelude to a later assignment in which the students write
a monologue for their character. This should take up the remainder of class, but any extra time can be used by the
students to start the assignment.
Understanding: I will check for understanding after the
lecture to ask the student for examples of monologues in
film, tv, stage predictions, etc.
Assessment:
1. Having random students reading monologues will
serve as an assessment for the monologues
portion of the lecture.
2. The take-home assignment is the assessment for
the character portion of the assessment.