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The culminating activity for collaboration in the drama classroom is to have your students work on a devising project. It will definitely show you how well your students work together! More on devising in the next blog post, but here's an exercise to get your students in the right frame of mind.

Start the exercise with a discussion. What is a mixed message? What does it look like and sound like? Give this definition: Mixed messages say one thing with the body and another thing with the voice.

Students often get hung up on the notion that in the theatre, sets, costumes, props all have to meet the standard of the movies. They have to be three dimensional and real. A car must have four wheels and move. A house must have two levels and different rooms. The truth is actually quite different - a theatre audience is very forgiving. If you let them know what world the play inhabits (two people sitting side by side on cubes, one holds their hands up as if holding a steering wheel) they will believe. They will go along for the ride. A single object can be so many different things - a chair can be a chair, or a car, or a mountain. The possibilities are endless.

The basic marshmallow challenge (detailed instructions here) is an ideal exercise to sharpen collaboration skills. It's works because it's so simple: groups of four are given 18 minutes to build the tallest free standing building they can with 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The time limit is important - it forces students to collaborate quickly. The competition aspect is also important - this pushes groups to work at their best.