Music-Based Improv Games for Young Actors

Most improv exercises are intended to expand actors comfort with creating characters, interacting in front of an audience, and thinking on their feet. Few exercises, however, are built around musical comedy. There are a few reasons for this: Musical comedy requires music, and few drama teachers have access to a piano and piano player. Sure, you can play around with recorded music -- but thats not as easy as it sounds.Musical comedy requires singing, and a surprising number of young actors are very shy about singing. Those students who are not confident in their singing skills may refuse to take part.Musical comedy doesnt generally require the same level of character development as a straight play or even a non-musical comedy. With music and dance to take up the slack, many musicals have stock characters with little motivation and few personal characteristics. So why bother with music-related improv? First: almost every high school in America -- and many junior high schools -- produce musicals every spring. If your students plan to take part, theyll need to brush up their musical skills. Second, music is a terrific tool for building internal rhythm and other skills your young actors will need whether or not they ever play a musical lead. The improv activities described here are music-related, but they dont require participants to read music -- or even to sing! Theme Music Improv This improv activity is suitable for 2 – 3 performers. It requires theatrical music to be played while the actors perform. I recommend a simple keyboard and someone who can play impromptu background music. (Nothing fancy is necessary – just music that conveys different emotions.) Have the audience members suggest a location. For example: library, zoo, kindergarten class, driving school, etc. The actors begin the scene with a normal, everyday exchange: Hey, Bob, did you get that promotion?Son, I got a call from the principal today.Hello, and welcome to jury duty! Once the conversation is underway, the instructor (or whoever is manning the keyboard) plays background music. The melody can alternate between dramatic, whimsical, suspenseful, western, science-fiction, romantic, and so forth. The actors must then create action and dialogue that matches the mood of the music. Whenever the music changes, the behavior of the characters change. Emotion Symphony This drama exercise is terrific for large groups. One person (perhaps the drama instructor or group leader) serves as the orchestra conductor. The rest of the performers should sit or stand in rows, as though they were musicians in an orchestra. However, instead of having a string section or a brass section, the conductor will create emotion sections. Learn more about how your students can create an â€Å"Emotion Orchestra.† Song Spoofs It’s not easy to compose original melodies. (Just ask 80s band Milli Vanilli!). However, students can take their first step toward a song-writing career by spoofing existing songs. Form the students into groups (between 2 – 4 people). They should then select a song with which they are each familiar. Note: It doesn’t have to be a show tune – any Top 40 song will do. The instructor will give the song-writing groups a topic for their song lyrics. Because of the storytelling nature of musical theater, the more conflict, the better. Here are a few suggestions: Getting â€Å"dumped† on Prom Night.Being trapped in an elevator.Getting caught shoplifting.Saying goodbye to your dead goldfish.Finding out your grandma is a vampire. Students collectively write as much of the lyrics as they can, hopefully telling a story, or conveying lyrical dialogue. The song could be delivered by one or more characters. When the students present their work to the rest of the class, they can simply read the lyrics to the class. Or, if they feel brave enough, they can perform the newly created number and sing their hearts out!

The Effects Of Bipolar Disorder On Individuals, Families...

Mental illness is a leading cause of disability in Canada. All Canadians are likely to be indirectly affected through a mental illness in a family, friend or colleague. Statistics showed that 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental health or addiction problem. (Mental Illness and Addictions: Facts and Statistics, n.d.). This report will be focusing on one of the more common mental illness — bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a serious medical condition that causes people to have extreme mood swings and these mood swings affect how people think, interact, behave and function (Bipolar Disorder, 2012). Research indicted that one to two percent of adults have bipolar disorder (Bipolar Disorder, 2012). Patients with bipolar disorder will also experience mania which are episodes of â€Å"severe sadness and hopelessness to overly high levels of energy, restlessness and irritability† (Rodriguez, 2015). This report will examine the effe ct of bipolar disorder on individuals, families and society. People with bipolar disorder often come across the question of â€Å"to tell or not to tell† because â€Å"the stigma attached to mental illnesses presents a serious barrier not only to diagnosis and treatment but also to acceptance in the community† (A Report on Mental Illnesses in Canada, 2012). About 42% of Canadians were unsure whether they would socialize with a friend who has a mental illness and about 27% said they would be fearful of being around someoneShow MoreRelatedBenefits And Concerns Of Predictive Genetic Testing998 Words   |  4 Pagesperformed using these new methods to test for bipolar disorder, specifically in those who have a family history of the disorder. 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The answer is No, we are not getting help for our mental problems since we sometimes don’t know it exist. â€Å"Bipolar disorder affects approximately 5.7 million adult Americans, or about 2.6% of the U.S. population age 18 and olderRead MoreSymptoms And Treatment Of Bipolar Disorder1572 Words   |  7 Pages Introduction Bipolar disorder has had a large history full of misunderstandings, wrongful treatments and stigma surrounding the illness. Bipolar, formerly called manic depression causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania) and lows (depression). (Mayo 1998) When you become depressed you may feel sad, vulnerable and anxious. When you experience mania you will become overly joyful or full of energy, making the crash back to depression that much harder. According to A ShortRead MoreTypes Of Bipolar Disorder ( Bipolar )1274 Words   |  6 PagesThere are several types of bipolar disorders, but the two main types are Bipolar I and Bipolar II. 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The occurrence of bipolar disorder (BD) throughout the adult population in the United Sta tes is reported to be approximately 5.7 million people each year, with a lifetime prevalence of 3.9 percentRead MoreSymptoms And Diagnosis Of Bipolar Disorder1345 Words   |  6 PagesBipolar Disorder Definition Bipolar disorder is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. Bipolar disorder affects approximately 57 million adult Americans, (Bipolar Disorder Statistics, 2016). It is more common for this disorder to affect adults rather than adolescent, with the onset age being somewhere around 25 years of age. Often time people live with disorder without having it properly diagnosed and treatedRead MoreBipolar Disorder1690 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿ Bipolar Disorder Abstract When many hear the words Bipolar disorder, they immediately think someone is borderline psycho. Known originally as manic depression, Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness that creates mood swings that affect an individual’s behavior and emotions, which can result in a lot of pain. This disorder has two types: Type I and Type II with both having manic and depressive phases in each. These phases are episodes that have symptoms

Management Data Visualisation

Question: Describe about the Data Visualisation? Answer: Introduction Data visualisation and data analysis with pictorial or graph and chart is become an important part in the todays business analytics. We have to analyse the data for the journalists in this assignment. In a world-wide several journalists were killed by the terrorists or other local authorities. Data related to this topic is provided within excel document file. We have to study several aspects related to the journalists who are killed worldwide. We have to use different analytical or statistical tools for the purpose of analysis of data for the deaths of journalists occurred worldwide. Data Elements There are total 24 variables given in the data set. Last column is used for the description purpose. Here we only consider 21 variables for study. The list and characteristic of these variables is given below: No. Variable Scale Description 1 Name Nominal Name of Journalist 2 Role Nominal Role of Journalist 3 Motive Nominal Motive confirmed or not 4 Sex Nominal Sex of Journalist 5 Date Killed Nominal Date of journalist killed 6 Year of Death Scale Year of Journalist killed 7 Month of Death Nominal Month in which journalist killed 8 Country Killed Nominal Country in which Journalist killed 9 Organization Nominal Organization of Journalist 10 Nationality Nominal Nationality of Journalist 11 Medium Nominal Type of media for which Journalist works 12 Job Nominal Type of job of Journalist 13 Coverage Nominal Type of coverage 14 Freelance Nominal Whether Journalist is freelance or not 15 Local/Foreign Nominal Journalist is foreign or local 16 Source of Fire Nominal source of fire 17 Type of Death Nominal type of death 18 Impunity (for Murder) Nominal impunity for murder 19 Taken Captive Nominal taken captive or not 20 Threatened Nominal threatened or not 21 Tortured Nominal tortured or not 22 Profile on CPJ Nominal profile information 23 Image Nominal image reference site 24 Description Nominal Description of how Journalist killed Data Visualisation and data analysis: There are total 1589 observations for each variable under study. The frequency for journalist is found as 1502 and for media workers it is found as 87. Out of total journalists, 1083 were motive confirmed while 419 were unconfirmed. Percentage for male journalist is found as 86.8%. In the year 2007, total 112 journalists were killed and this is the maximum number of journalist killed in any year. Most of the journalists (about 251) were killed in the country Iraq. Maximum Proportion of journalists killed is found for the print media. 184 journalists killed by the terrorists were freelance media worker. 137 journalists were killed in the foreign countries. 713 journalists were murdered by terrorists. Most of the journalists were killed in the month May and November. Now, we have to test one hypothesis that whether the average number of journalist killed per month are 130 or not? For checking this hypothesis we need the following information: For this hypothesis, the null and alternative hypothesis is given as below: Null hypothesis: H0: Average number of journalists killed is 130. Alternative hypothesis: Ha: Average number of journalists killed is not 130. For this one sample t test, we have p-value is greater than the level of significance or alpha value 0.05, so we do not reject the null hypothesis that Average number of journalists killed is 130. The 95% confidence interval for the average number of deaths of journalists per month is found as (122, 142). Interpretations or conclusions: 1) There are total 1589 deaths of journalists recorded over the time period from 1992 to 2014. 2) Most of the deaths are observed in the country Iraq.3) Most of the deaths are observed for print media journalists.4) Deaths of female journalists are comparatively very less than the male journalists.5) On an average, about 132 journalists are killed during the period from 1992 to 2014.6) Most of the journalists were killed in the month of May and November.7) Most of the deaths of journalists occurred due to the murder. References: 1) Abramowitz, M., and Stegun, I.A., "Handbook of mathematical functions", Dover publications, New York, 1964 (1972) 2) Crow, E.L., Davis, F.A., and Maxfield, M.W. "Statistics Manual", Dover publications, Inc New York, 1960 3) Fraser, D.A.S., "Nonparametric methods in statistics", John WileySons, New York, ChapmanHall, London, 1957 (2nd 1959) 4) Kanji, G.K., "100 statistical tests", Sage publications London, Newbury Park, New Dehli, ISBN: 0 8039 8704 8, 1993 5) Papoulis, Athanasios "Probability and Statistics" Prentence-Hall International Editions, ISBN: 0 13 711730 2, 1990 6) Siegel, S. "Non-parametric statistics for the behavioral sciences", McGraw-Hill book company, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, 1956 7) Van den Brink, W.P., and Koele, P. "Statistiek, Deel 3: Toepassingen", Boom Meppel Amsterdam 8) D. Rowntree, Statistics without tears: a primer for non-mathematicians, (Scribner, New York, 1981). 9) G. Kranzler and J. Moursund, Statistics for the Terrified 2nd ed., (Prentice Hall , Upper Saddle River, 1999). 10) G.F.K. Naylor and L.E. Enticknap, Statistics Simplified. An Introduction for Social Scientists and Others. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Group, Sydney, 1981).11) H. Motulsky, Intuitive Biostatistics: A Nonmathematical Guide to Statistical Thinking, (2nd ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2010).12) D.B. Orr, Fundamentals of Applied Statistics and Surveys, (Chapman and Hall, New York, 1995).