[Distance Learning Adaptation] Musical Theatre: Character Analysis

Actors should know all sides of the characters they play. That knowledge comes with much research, thought, and practice! With guiding questions, fun "dress up" activities, and role-playing, students can be successful with character analysis.

2020 COVID-19 Distance Learning Note: I am currently working through these resources with my kids online. It can be done. Schools in my area are functioning under "Do No Harm" grading. This unit allows me to reach the kids that missed the Spring musical while using some ELA terminology they might already know and be using with their classroom teachers.

I plan to walk you through the four-week unit plan I designed to help my students understand their pirate characters. Skip ahead or pick and choose the parts that work for you. At the end, I share my free, interactive digital resource for pirate character analysis, so stay until then!

Introducing Your Scene and Mood

This part always makes me think of the "Choose your character" TikToks.

A little theme music goes a long way. Dinner party? Better put on that hipster house party playlist. Cleaning the bathroom? Lots of feel good oldies. Character study? In this case I'm going to use my pirate characters. [Free Google Slides resource for this at the end!]

I partnered my pirate character study with John Jacobson's "Pirates!" musical. We were supposed to do it this year, so I figured we keep on keepin' on instead of throwing out my whole playbook in favor of an overly digital experience.

Week 1: Listen to this pirate song. How many pirate terms can you catch? Do you know what they all mean?

We worked exclusively with the opening number, "Pirates All Are We." My philosophy was that the song needed to be 1) a full-cast number and 2) very pirate-y. All of the key vocabulary of "lubbers," "buccaneer," "ahoy and avast," etc. hit the second point on the head.

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Do The "Music" Part of Musical Theatre

The song I chose required a lot of repetition from me. There are an enormous amount of new terms, it is in rolling 6/8 time, and requires students hold high notes for A-WHILE. We could have done "Lost Boy" by Ruth B. and our pirates might have come out differently. Or "What Can You Do With The Silly Sailor?," also changing our pirate's theme depending on if we are the silly sailor or the crew that's sick of the lazy brute. PS: You might have learned a version of that song where the sailor enjoyed many pirate beverages, ahoy.

In the digital space, I set up a private Zoom session where I shared my screen featuring a scan of the libretto and I recorded the session while I spoke the text in rhythm very slowly. That allowed kids to stop, go back, and try again. Same deal with my singing, just later in the video. Then, they could try it with "the pros" on the vocal recording.

Week 2: Repeat after me as I speak and sing the text slowly. Rewind the video if it is too fast or you need to hear it again. Then, try to sing along with the pros!

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Study The Characters

Jacobson's musical gives you lots of lines to help with understanding each pirate's personality. Unfortunately, I wasn't up for a digital musical. So, we created our own personalities. If I did this again in a live setting, we would draw pre-created characters from a hat to analyze. Keep in mind, my musical theatre group is all elective, but I teach a musical theatre unit to all of the students. There is some crossover.

Students envision what their pirate is like. What is their name? What do they look like? Then, we move into formally giving them traits. This can be tricky, so I paired it up with a "paper doll" style activity. Or a Bitmoji dress up style event. My visual learners do very well seeing their pirate before giving them abstract traits. Students can complete the "thinking" part of analysis before the "creating" part or vice versa, as they wish.

Week 3: Use the Google Slide to create your character.

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Bring The Character to Life

Anyone hearing Evanescence in here? No? Just me?

Role playing is important to fulfilling all of the background work that has been done, and bringing the ideas from students' minds to life! In a Do No Harm digital setting, I had to consider that I wouldn't be able to assign lines to memorize (especially without accommodations in place) and that some students might feel subconscious in a video chat. Enter: OPTIONS!

Option 1: Video Chat

I thought it might be a good idea to host a virtual meeting just to check in with kids but in character! Those kids that already liked video chat (the ones the classroom teachers tell you about in the staff meetings) could lead and others might fall in line. And the ability to type in the chat box gave others who needed some time to think the option to type instead.

Option 2: Classroom "Question"

Fairly, I have not had much success with students using the "Question" feature of Google Classroom. They just create their own reply without replying to anyone else. Something to address once we are back to in-person instruction, I suppose! But, posting an Announcement or other topic in Classroom gives the same effect. Students can role play through the forum to "chat" with each other in character.

Note: Some prep to remind students to be calm and respectful is necessary for both Options. No super rude pirates in this classroom, argh!

Week 4: BE the pirate! Join us in the video chat or forum discussion as your character!

As promised, here is my free, Pirate character analysis resource at Teachers Pay Teachers.

I hope your venture into character development with your kids. Best of luck.