The Group Devising Deadline
A Year 12 group of four students is devising an original 12-minute piece for the Group Performance. With three weeks until the trial performance, their work-in-progress runs 8 minutes and is built around a single physical-theatre motif: four performers moving as one body. Two members, Priya and Sam, want to keep developing the motif because it is the strongest element. The other two, Jordan and Lee, argue the piece has no narrative clarity and push for scripted dialogue scenes. The group has already changed direction twice, losing a week each time. Their teacher has warned that the final piece must show individual contribution and that marks are awarded for a clear dramatic structure and a coherent theatrical style. Rehearsals are limited to two 90-minute sessions per week. Priya has missed the last two rehearsals for a family commitment and returns next week.
1. As the group's facilitator, what decision-making process should you lead in the next rehearsal to resolve the creative conflict without another lost week? Justify your approach using devising and collaboration principles.
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The facilitator should not simply pick a side, because both positions name a real weakness: the motif is strong but under-structured, and the narrative concern is legitimate but a wholesale switch to scripted scenes would discard the group's best theatrical material and risk a third lost week.
A defensible process:
- Re-establish shared criteria first. Before debating content, the group writes the assessment criteria on the whiteboard - clear structure, coherent style, demonstrated individual contribution - and agrees these decide the argument, not personal preference.
- Time-box the debate. Give each pair 10 minutes to present a concrete proposal (not a complaint) that keeps the motif and adds clarity, or keeps dialogue and adds physicality.
- Test both quickly. Improvise a two-minute version of each proposal in the same session. Evidence from the floor, not rhetoric, settles the question.
- Synthesise rather than compromise. The strongest likely outcome is scripted text layered onto the physical motif, so narrative clarity emerges from the movement rather than replacing it.
- Address Priya's absence explicitly. Her contribution must be visible; the group should record rehearsals and give her a defined role in the synthesis so she is not sidelined and her individual contribution is documented.
- Lock the decision. Record it in a devising log with a date and no reopening unless the trial performance reveals a genuine problem.
The justification draws on collaborative devising practice: shared criteria reduce ego-driven conflict, time-boxing protects scarce rehearsal time, and embodied testing produces better evidence than abstract argument. It also protects the group's best asset - the motif - while responding to the legitimate structural critique.
2. The trial performance reveals the piece is still 8 minutes and the structure sags in the middle. Using the remaining rehearsal time, outline a concrete revision plan and explain what you would cut and why.
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The revision plan must be driven by the assessment criteria, not by sentiment about favourite moments.
Diagnosis. Two problems: duration (8 of 12 minutes) and a sagging middle. These are linked - the sag is likely where the group is repeating the motif without development, which also wastes time that could extend the piece.
Plan across the remaining sessions:
- Session 1 - structural audit. Map the piece beat by beat on paper with timings. Identify the sag: probably a stretch where the motif repeats without escalation. Decide the dramatic question of each section and cut any section that does not advance it.
- Session 2 - motif development. Instead of repeating the unified-body motif, vary it: fragment it (performers break apart), invert it (one body resists the group), and escalate it (the group body turns on one member). This adds roughly 2–3 minutes of genuinely new material and fixes the sag by giving the middle rising tension.
- Session 3 - text integration. Insert short scripted exchanges at the motif's fracture points, giving narrative clarity without abandoning the physical style.
- Session 4 - run and trim. Full runs with a stopwatch; cut anything that does not serve structure.
What to cut and why. Cut repeated motif cycles that do not escalate, and any scene that exists only because someone is attached to it. The criterion is function: if a moment does not build tension, reveal character, or mark a structural turning point, it is costing time the piece needs.
Risk management. Build in a buffer so the final week is polishing, not rewriting.