NZQA Standard 3.6 - Perform a substantial acting role in a significant production

Each year, our Senior College drama students perform their NCEA assessment pieces for an audience. Often edgy productions that push the boundaries for the students and audience alike, these ‘mini productions’ have become more sophisticated with each passing year. With minimal props and costuming, the focus is placed clearly on the actors and their stage craft; their ability to not only deliver their lines but to use complex dramatic skills to fully engage their audience.

Following on from productions by Years 11 and 12 over the last two weeks, this week it was the turn of Year 13. Performed over two nights, our NCEA Level 3 drama students were tasked with achieving NZQA Standard 3.6 – ‘Perform a substantial acting role in a significant production.’

DECADE
By Headlong Theatre and various playwrights
Directors: Jess Acheson and Naomi Wilson

Choosing a play for the Year 13 cohort can often be a difficult process as all students must play a significant role for the requirements of the assessment of the NZQA standard. We must also consider the genre of plays already covered by the student in previous years to give them both exposure to, and experience with, a wide range of play styles and theatre forms. Decade, by Headlong Theatre and various playwrights, ticked these boxes as it is a modern play with mature content, played out in many small scenes encompassing many different multi-layered characters.

Ten years after 9/11, a global tragedy still enormous in both its scale and effect on people all around the world, Headlong theatre company commissioned twenty writers to create plays about the event from a variety of perspectives. The Year 13 production presented thirteen of these, varying from docudrama to surrealism, all in one performance. The playlets are not as monumental as the event itself, and rightly so. They are reflective, more interested in the people affected by the attacks and the multitude of future events they would provoke, some surprising in their simplicity, all helping us remember what it means to be human, and how events like this affect us as individuals, not just a nation or indeed a world.

It was a pleasure to see the Year 13 students working collaboratively on this play as the two classes came together to sew the tapestry of the texts into one performance. The play asked the students to deepen their understanding of how humans think, act and interact by delving into the subtext of their characters. The research and rehearsal process for our Year 13 students reminded us that we are all human and should respect and be kind to one another, as we never really know the true impact that an event such as this has on others. As a class we talked openly about the power of theatre to present these stories in hope that tragedies and prejudices such as 9/11 will be prevented from happening again.

The result was a powerful piece of theatre for which the Year 13s can be very proud.

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