Performance Skills and Creating Drama
The skill set
Performance skills fall into broad families. Vocal skills include pitch, pace, pause, volume, projection, articulation, diction, tone, accent, and breath control. Physical skills include posture, gesture, facial expression, proxemics (use of space and distance), levels, gait, weight, rhythm, and focus. Ensemble skills include eye contact, listening, giving and taking focus, timing, and spatial awareness. Directorial and devising skills include improvisation, role-play, hot-seating, image theatre, status work, and the selection and refinement of material.
Candidates must be able to describe a skill precisely, explain why it was chosen, and evaluate its impact on meaning and audience. You should also understand the devising cycle: stimulus, exploration, selection, structuring, rehearsal, refinement, and performance. Understanding how to give and receive feedback, and how to document the process, is also expected.
Traps to watch
The biggest trap is vagueness: 'good facial expression' or 'loud voice' tells the examiner nothing. Specify the quality and the reason. Another trap is describing what you felt rather than what you did and what the audience experienced. A third is ignoring the ensemble: drama is collaborative, so credit the group skills. Finally, do not confuse rehearsal process with performance outcome; both must be discussed.
Worked example
Rather than 'I used a loud voice to show anger', write: 'I dropped my pitch and slowed my pace to a deliberate crawl, letting each word land, so the audience felt the character's controlled menace rather than open rage.' This names specific skills, gives the quality of execution, and states the intended audience effect.
Rule of thumb
Every skill claim needs three parts: what you did, how you did it, and why it mattered.