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My two biggest passions within the world of Theatre are improv and Shakespeare! I think it is so fascinating that Shakespeare is still relevant and relatable today, as well as the fact that so many of his phrases are entwined into our everyday speech.
Improv is an amazing outlet, especially for someone with anxiety, like me. I find it to be a great mindset for trying new things, because for most things in life, like in an improv scene, nobody knows what is going to happen, and if you make a "mistake", in the end it's really no big deal.
-HH

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Something I aim to do in my classroom is use the language that the students use as often as I can, to deepen their understanding of the topic. For example, I had my students make a Snapchat story of Macbeth.
- HH

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I memorized a YouTube video of a woman doing 22 accents in 3 minutes, and it has been my "party trick" for years. It has also really helped in productions that have called for an accent, and it has helped in my creating of characters in my improv scenes. It has also helped to engage students when I am reading a passage aloud to them.
-HH

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I'm passionate about performance and language. I love that people from all backgrounds and cultures can communicate emotions and ideas through the language of theatre.

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I regard the drama teaching space as a safe space, where all are encouraged to express themselves, experiment and create. I encourage students to learn the well-tested techniques of say; the playing of Shakespeare, with the freedom of improvisation and fun warm ups. I want students to learn but understand the process too.

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Theatre skills: My skillset has developed, over a long teaching career. Initially, I was always very dynamic, but I have developed my reflective and listening skills, so that I get more of a sense of what is not said or displayed. As well as performing and encouraging performance, I am becoming increasingly keen on set building and design.

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Mia Heathcote- I am passionate about students believing in themselves, conquering fears and overcoming hurdles. For me, its not about 'talent' in theatre I think there is so much more to it. Holistic approaches in something I am keen to embed, as much as knowledge of theory in also very important to me. Sparking curiosity is my biggest goal.

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Mia Heathcote- heavy pastoral approach, stretch & challenge and generating curiosity in all set topics by exploring avenues to suit all students, so they can be the best versions of themselves. I use humour, a lot! I like to 'trick' students into fun and energetic atmosphere but generally I am aiming to test their knowledge and develop their confidence in the subject.

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Mia Heathcote- My skill set within theatre has mainly consisted of being taught through secondary education/University. My personal interests has played a big part; I am very interested in theatrical make-up & costume. Not only a visual interest but I am keen to practically carry this out, from hand making costumes, creating SFX/ realistic/everyday make-up ,researching era's and making-up costumes for school productions.

Although I had big ambitions to get into the industry, teaching the skills of theatre carried more of a passion. I featured in a paid position,  presenting for a pilot for a new supernatural program- meaning I still have some prior experience of the industry.

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I have a dance background. Singing too. I performed a one woman show that i wrote. The difference between being a teacher and being a performer is an important conversation for me. I have skills in both.

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Approaches -  I establish safety by building close relationships with my students. There is usually a good feeling in the classroom- relaxed, fun, open, loving. This fosters creativity, trust and emotional honesty which goes along way with improvisation, acting, creativity and bringing themselves fully to texts and topics. I am constantly aware of the need to listen for relevant ideas, topics, starting points and texts that speak them. And that as an educator. There is room for error. I encourage curiosity and independent learning. Sometimes students have highly sophisticate ideas and I feel like I need to get out of the way and let them lead. 

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Approaches -  I establish safety by building close relationships with my students. There is usually a good feeling in the classroom- relaxed, fun, open, loving. This fosters creativity, trust and emotional honesty which goes along way with improvisation, acting, creativity and bringing themselves fully to texts and topics. I am constantly aware of the need to listen for relevant ideas, topics, starting points and texts that speak them. And that as an educator. There is room for error. I encourage curiosity and independent learning. Sometimes students have highly sophisticate ideas and I feel like I need to get out of the way and let them lead. 

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I think my main passion is to somehow engage in artistic action.

When I had various difficulties in my theater career, I found myself bending the wires and giving them human form. After a while, I tried painting these forms. I tried writing poems, stories, and plays in a pessimistic time when I was unemployed. Or I tried repairing one side of the house and painting it.

I think in a way my passion is making art, good or bad.

Sometimes I think working with students is a different kind of production than artistic production. "Producing people" is an ugly rhetoric, but I'm sure you, as teachers, will understand what I am talking about. Because at the end of the studies, I can see some students whose postures, speeches, ideas, behaviors have improved or renewed.

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It is always very important for me that students get to know me, themselves and each other. That's why I do drama exercises as a team about communication, relationship, and trust. I chat a lot with students.

Creating curiosity in the student is another approach I always adopt. I love to ask questions and listen to ideas. I do not give the answer as a result of the conversations. Usually I suggest a source and ask students to search for the answer and share it with me.

Another important issue is to teach correctly what is dramatic. I often give feedback on what dramatic stories should contain. It is very important for the classes to create their own works instead of focusing on ready texts.

Problem solving skills on stage are also very important. Changing the directive suddenly in fun improvisations is very useful in risk management on stage.

Basically I am satisfied when a quiet class starts asking questions frequently.

Finally, I finish that day's lesson by listening to the students' criticism of their performance and their solution suggestions.

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Basically, I am good at observation, improvisation, rhetoric ( in turkish :), gesture and imagery, persuading the audience and focusing on the role.

However, since I have been working as an instructor for the last four years, I can say that my teaching skills are more important. My empathy, stress controlling, patience and communication skills have improved a lot since I worked in schools.

What are the skills I have to develop? There are many things I have to improve depends on each work, especially dancing… I like to watch dance, however I can't dance well. Or I never trust I dance well.  It always takes a long time for me to learn choreography and I know I am bad at physical theatre.  I am also bad at using technological appliances like commanding lights and effects. It is always very stressful for me when I have to use these kinds of devices.

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i am passionate about how theatre can transform individuals and communities. The live factor is electrifying. Going through a show together builds relationships forever, i am passionate about that. Theatre invites people to bring their entire self to a process. It is the ultimate art form because it invites all the art forms into its loving arms and has the capacity to reflect the most difficult of human experiences. I am obsessed with breaking down walls, in life as a concept, and theatre invites the possibility for breaking down walls - the fourth wall, the walls the keep us separated from each other - theatre reveals truths and shows who we are. The bravery and efforts of people who embark in theatre - blows my mind.

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My passion come from seeing the power of theatre. How it changes people's perception, understanding, attitude or even behaviour. My passion also come from the seeing the beauty of the artwork. It speaks to audience in the most authentic way.

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For me, to begin with self-discovery is very important, as I believe theatre-making starts from something which really matters to oneself. However, to find out this "matter" is not easy, makers have to learn how to listen to our hearts -- the "heart" is the subject to relate to others and the world.

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Previously my theatre skills are more on acting and movement-based theatre. When I have more opportunities to work with young people and communities, Devising theatre becomes one of my main tool for theatre-making. Recently I am quite into movement-based devising. Other theatre skills I especially drawn to are those of  participatory theatre such as Boal's strategies, TiE, DiE, and other applied theatre forms.

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My skills in theatre have developed as a product of creating musical theatre over the course of my career. I have worked most extensively with my husband to create pieces and have therefore developed many skills such as designing and programming lighting, sound, designing sets, building and developing props, and teaching choreography. My most developed skill set is music direction, vocal coaching and managing/working effectively with a creative team. I am most interested in developing my repertoire of devising skills and workshop implementation in my drama classroom.

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I have more experience teaching DP music than I do teaching theatre- so I would like to speak from that lens. My approach with students in the music classroom- and in my MYP theatre classes as well is to start from where they are. Students experience and context is the frame that all learning and growth develops on. I strive to make students comfortable, establish a playful, safe environment that encourages risk-taking, creative sharing and thinking outside of boxes. Helping students to know themselves and their skillsets helps them to expand and set creative. goals that are achievable and meaningful.

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I am passionate about many things- but the aspect of my life and work that I am most invested in now is collaboration. I have been making art and music for most of my life and it is the collaborative endeavors that facilitate human connection that have brought the most joy- to the members and hopefully audiences alike. It is one of the things that I love most about doing theatre work-seldom is a piece of art the product of just one person. In the process of communicating intent, vision, skills and connecting with others that makes the process so powerful.

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I like to start off by making my students feel like they belong. I think that is the most important thing when you start any part of an arts experience. I want to get to know them, their interests, and I want them to get to know me.
I want them to feel ownership of their experience and learn to be more self reliant.
If I see a student struggling I try to give them options to be successful and I always want to make sure that they are contributing in class, no matter how they need to do it.

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I am a jack of all trades. I can hang, focus, and troubleshoot lighting. I can program LED lights, I can do makeup, I can build costumes, sets, and scenic paint. I can also build props if I have to. I teach performance as well as train students to stage manage, and use sound equipment. I am not that great at improvisation and need to work on that.

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I love teaching Brecht and I think in this current climate, students love to explore this issue as well.

I love exploring voice work and it is fascinating to me what the voice can do. It is so personal to everyone, and I find it very emotional when participating in voice classes.

I absolutely love learning about culture in theatre and seeing how theatre can translate this to the world.

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Since starting my MEd, it has reminded me what it is like to be a student again, so I now make more time for mistakes, risk-taking, inquiry, evaluation and reflection.

My current students really enjoy seeing me perform, so I have now started to truly make this a part of my teaching and learning. Since making time to act more in class, I see a confidence  in my students that was't there before.

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I love being an acting students and attending acting workshops.
When I was at drama school, I particularly loved classical theatre, but as I've got older, devising and physical theatre seem to come a lot more naturally to me. I also now prefer Meisner's techniques compared to Stanislavski's (I've found that's an unpopular opinion to some people!).
With performance experience, I've come to embrace making mistakes and I'm really proud that I've grown to really see the benefit of this in the process and performance of theatre.

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Two topics that I love to teach are the use of space and status.  There is a good deal of overlap between them.  I love to explore themes of power and control.

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My strength comes from studying theater-as-text and in drawing on literary theory to understand the stories that we present through theater. I have a strong background in Marxian theory, Existentialism, and Psychoanalysis, which inform the conceptual groundwork of playwrights like Jean-Paul Sartre or Bertolt Brecht. As I teach, I'm interested in placing a given playwright in larger historical, literary and cultural contexts.

But... other than dabbling in a few one-act plays in high school, I have very little experience with performance and production of theatre. This is not my area of expertise, so please bare with me as I flounder through this workshop!

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As I am located in Japan, I am excited to explore traditional and modern forms of Japanese theater with my students, such as Noh and Kabuki. However, I currently have little understanding of Japanese theatre.

As I mentioned in the Big Questions forum, I am passionate about games-as-stories or stories-as-games, role-play, LARPs, etc. and I want to explore games through the critical eye of theatre studies.

I write short stories, and I am interested in approaching my writing as script or as interactive texts.

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My background is in literature, so I approach theatre as a form of literature. This has some advantages, such as an acute focus on language, plot, and dialogue, and some disadvantages, such as a weak understanding of performance and the more technical side of theatre production.

My actual classes start next year, and I will likely have a small class (definitely less than 10 students). Our school is not really equipped with an adequate stage. Japanese schools have a stage that's designed for ceremony (so they tend to lack a backstage or room for large props). That said, my classes will probably focus much more on the intellectual side of theatre studies, and the student performances will be small in scale.

Lastly, my current students are a bit behind most IB programs in English acquisition, so I am considering how theatre can be a vehicle for language acquisition, and my need to develop tools that focus on confidence building with English and language output.

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My approach to teaching begins with games. That was one of my biggest takeaways from studying drama at university. I love to engage in work that is thematically challenging though I have found schools often prefer to err on the side of caution when choosing play texts. Inclusion is one of focus areas, especially with production work. I always think of a theatre group called Mind the Gap in the UK who work with actors who have learning disabilities.

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My approach to teaching begins with games. That was one of my biggest takeaways from studying drama at university. I love to engage in work that is thematically challenging though I have found schools often prefer to err on the side of caution when choosing play texts. Inclusion is one of focus areas, especially with production work. I always think of a theatre group called Mind the Gap in the UK who work with actors who have learning disabilities.

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My best skills are in acting and directing. I have some playwrighting training. I know a little about a lot. I have done a little lights, sound, stage managing, building sets. The main skill I have is putting on a show, big or small, making and creating collaboratively.

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My approach to teaching depends very much on the class that I have and the numbers in the group. I have had groups of 15 at IB down to groups of 2. I believe very much in learning by doing and like to get the students on their feet as soon as possible, emphasizing the importance and value of experimentation and risk taking. I love the devising process and work with the students' own interests and passions as much as possible.

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My own theatre skills have changed with time and I much prefer to direct than perform nowadays. I also like to write, even though all I have had time to write in the past year is the annual staff pantomime!
My skills definitely lie more in teaching than performing and there is nothing more rewarding than seeing my vision of a performance become a reality.

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I am passionate about anything new. I like seeing how theatre has changed and how history and geography have shaped how we tell stories. The evolution of the stage.
I am passionate about showing young people what theatre can be. Showing them how to express themselves and giving them confidence.

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I believe it is really important to show students how theatre is connected to the world around them. I think theatre teaches you skills like organization, collaboration,  expressing ideas, etc. that are skills that will serve all students going into all professions. I like to teach theatre through the lens of these broader subjects. As students learn about theatre in all of its aspects, I like to point our how theatre relates to their own everyday lives.

I am also a big believer in collaboration. Taking student input and having student discussions are important. We are learning together.

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I am passionate about devising theatre and love to learn about and watch the work of new companies. I also love to watch new work grow from the ideas of the students. I am passionate about musicals, but I will go to the theatre to watch absolutely anything as I can learn something from every theatre experience.