Foundations: the three components

You are asked to keep an illustrated record of how your group turned a photograph into a five-minute devised scene in the style of a practitioner. Which component is this, and what does the record become?

1. 01Identify the activity

   Devising an original scene from a stimulus (the photograph) in the style of a practitioner is the defining task of Creating Original Drama - Component 2.

2. 02Identify the document

   An individual illustrated record of the devising process is the Working Notebook, the written element of Component 2 that carries the larger share of that component's marks.

3. 03Rule out the others

   It is not Component 1 (a written exam on set plays and a seen production) and not Component 3 (exploring three extracts from published plays and realising one), which uses a reflective report, not a Working Notebook.

4. 04State the outcome

   So the task belongs to Component 2, and the record is a Working Notebook assessed for how it documents, develops, analyses and evaluates the process and your own contribution.

Result: The task is correctly placed in Component 2 (Creating Original Drama), with the record identified as the Working Notebook - showing why knowing the component structure lets you understand what any activity is assessing.

A Component 1 set-play question asks: 'As a director, explain how you would stage this extract to communicate the tension between the two characters to your audience.' What must your answer do?

1. 01Identify the perspective

   The question fixes the perspective as director, so you must think about staging the whole moment - positioning, movement, pace, use of space, and how you would guide the actors - not only one character's delivery.

2. 02Identify the focus

   The focus is a specific effect: communicating the tension between the two characters. Every choice you propose must serve that effect.

3. 03Make practical, justified choices

   Propose concrete directorial decisions - for example widening the proxemic distance between them, a slow build in pace, a held silence, contrasting levels - and justify each by how it makes the audience feel the tension.

4. 04Anchor in the text

   Tie the choices to what actually happens in the extract (the lines, the stage directions, the shifts in the scene), showing your interpretation grows from the play.

Result: The answer is a set of specific, justified directorial choices for the extract, each explained by its intended effect on the audience - the interpretive, practical response the open-book paper rewards, not a description of the scene.

A student says: 'For my coursework I worked with two published plays and a third, and performed a scene from one of them in a Brechtian style, then wrote about how my ideas developed.' Which component is being described?

1. 01Spot the source material

   The material is three published plays (extracts), not original devised work, which points to Component 3, Making Theatre, rather than Component 2.

2. 02Spot the realisation

   Performing one extract in a named practitioner's style (Brechtian) is exactly the Component 3 requirement to realise one extract using a prescribed practitioner's methodology.

3. 03Spot the document

   Writing about how the ideas developed is the reflective report of Component 3, not the Working Notebook of Component 2.

4. 04Confirm

   All three signals agree, so the description is Component 3, Making Theatre - had the student devised an original piece from a stimulus and kept an illustrated notebook, it would have been Component 2.

Result: The description is identified as Component 3 by reading three signals - existing extracts, a practitioner-styled realisation of one, and a reflective report - demonstrating how the component's features let you classify any coursework task.

A character enters and delivers the news of a death to a waiting family. Suggest one idea from each perspective to shape this moment.

1. 01As a performer

   The messenger might deliver the news slowly and quietly, with a controlled voice that cracks on a key word, and a stillness of the body that forces the family - and the audience - to lean in.

2. 02As a designer

   A designer might isolate the messenger in a cold, narrow light while the family sits in warmer light, and cut all sound to silence at the moment of the news, so the change registers physically for the audience.

3. 03As a director

   A director might stage the messenger apart from the family, holding the distance, and freeze the family in a held tableau on the news, using the whole picture and its pace to communicate the shock.

4. 04See them combine

   Notice how the three choices reinforce one another - the vocal delivery, the light and silence, and the staged distance all serve the same intended effect, which is what a unified production does.

Result: One moment yields three distinct but complementary ideas - performer, designer and director - showing how the perspectives give you three routes to the same meaning and how they combine into a single effect on the audience.

In the live theatre section a student writes: 'The lighting was blue and dim, and then it got brighter when the character came in.' Why does this score poorly, and how should it be fixed?

1. 01Identify the assessment objective

   The live theatre section rewards AO4 - analysis and evaluation of the theatre makers' work - so mere description of what happened cannot reach the higher marks.

2. 02Diagnose the answer

   The sentence only describes the lighting (blue, dim, brighter); it does not analyse why the choice was made or evaluate how effective it was.

3. 03Add analysis

   Explain the intended meaning: the dim blue state created a cold, oppressive atmosphere that positioned the audience to feel the character's isolation, and the brightening on the entrance signalled hope, shifting the mood.

4. 04Add evaluation

   Judge the effect: the change was effective because it was gradual and timed precisely to the entrance, so the audience felt the shift rather than merely noticing it - a considered directorial and lighting choice.

Result: Reading the AO4 behind the task turns a descriptive sentence into an analytical, evaluative one - explaining intended meaning and judging effectiveness - which is exactly the move that lifts written-exam marks.