The Flint Street Nativity - Play, by Tim Firth (4) (Script work // Writing in role)

In today's lesson we ran the first 19 pages of the script again but without using our scripts (as much as we could) and with the new blocking. Our blocking has now changed. Whenever a character or characters has some spoken dialogue they should come to centre stage to perform. Also, everybody else must be doing something at all times. We have decided that all characters should remain on stage at all times, unless it is essential for a character to leave.

After this, we did some character writing; we were told to write a short monologue (either as a diary entry or a letter to somebody) describing an average day at school. My monologue is as follows:

Dear Diary,
      Today I got another five stickers on my who's been good chart! The first one was a gold one because I helped Miss Horrocks tidy up. The next two were pink and I got them for helping Tim learn his lines. I got a yellow one for combing Ryan's hair. The last one (from today) was purple and that was for knowing my lines and playing my recorder nicely. Ashley got a sticker today but it wasn't fair! She only got it because she pretended to be monitor! And it wasn't even her turn! She just was bossy and nasty, but I'm going to peel her sticker off the chart before breakfast club tomorrow!

We did this character writing to get a better understanding of our characters. This also made us think about our character's feelings for other characters and their relationships. Moreover, listening to everybody else's monologues helped us to get an even better understanding of our characters, as we learned how other characters felt towards/about our characters.