FTCE Drama 6-12 common mistakes
FTCE Drama 6-12 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Confusing the roles of playwright, director, and dramaturg when answering scenario items-e.g., attributing casting or blocking decisions to the playwright, or script research/analysis to the director.
Candidates study plays as literature and absorb production terms informally, so the division of labor among creative and production roles blurs; test items deliberately place a decision in the wrong role to test precise vocabulary.
What to do instead
Build a one-page role chart (playwright, director, dramaturg, stage manager, producer, designers, choreographer, musical director) and for each list the decisions they own and the documents they generate (script, blocking notes, dramaturgical packet, prompt book, cue sheet). Drill by classifying sample decisions into the correct role.
Mixing up stage directions and stage areas-labeling upstage/downstage or house left/stage left from the audience's perspective, or misplacing the abbreviations US, DS, SL, SR, CS.
Everyday intuition says 'up' means toward the audience because seating rises; candidates also default to their own left/right rather than the actor's. The convention is arbitrary and must be memorized, not derived.
What to do instead
Anchor the rule physically: stage directions are from the actor facing the audience; upstage is away from the audience (historically the raked stage's high end). Practice with a simple ground plan, labeling a grid of nine areas and translating a short blocking sequence into abbreviations until it is automatic.
Treating Greek theatre as a monolith-asserting that all Greek plays used a raised stage, that the chorus was always 12 or always 15, or that Aristotle's unities were rules playwrights actually followed.
Survey textbooks compress Greek practice into tidy bullet points, and the Poetics is read as prescriptive law rather than descriptive analysis of mostly fourth-century tragedy. Candidates then answer with confident but overgeneralized claims.
What to do instead
Learn the chronology and the sources: Thespis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes; the physical evolution of the Theatre of Dionysus; chorus size conventions by playwright; and the fact that the 'three unities' come from later Renaissance interpretation of Aristotle. Practice distinguishing 'Aristotle observed' from 'Greek playwrights were required to.'
Collapsing theatrical periods into one another-assigning commedia dell'arte conventions to medieval mystery plays, or attributing neoclassical decorum and the unities to Elizabethan drama.
Period labels are memorized as dates without the defining conventions attached, so items that describe a convention rather than name a period defeat the candidate. Overlap in time (e.g., Shakespeare writing during the Spanish Golden Age) adds confusion.
What to do instead
Create a period matrix with columns for staging conditions, stock characters, dominant genres, key playwrights, and governing rules (decorum, unities, licensing). Populate it from primary examples-Everyman, Doctor Faustus, Tartuffe, The Country Wife, A Doll's House-so each convention is tied to a concrete text.
Misidentifying Shakespeare's theatre practice-claiming women performed on the Elizabethan public stage, that the Globe was indoors and lit by candles, or that soliloquies were addressed to other characters.
Modern film and stage productions routinely cast women and use realistic staging, which overwrites historical memory; terms like 'soliloquy,' 'aside,' and 'monologue' are used loosely in classrooms.
What to do instead
Study the Globe's architecture (open yard, thrust stage, no scene changes, daylight, boy actors, groundlings) alongside the definitions of soliloquy (alone, inner thought), aside (to the audience, unheard by others), and monologue (extended speech to others). Test yourself by classifying speeches from Hamlet and Macbeth.
Confusing the technical roles and paperwork of production-mixing the stage manager's prompt book with the director's blocking script, or the lighting designer's light plot with the master electrician's channel hookup and cue sheet.
Technical theatre vocabulary is learned on the job with local variation, and candidates often have experience in only one area (e.g., acting), leaving design and management terminology thin.
What to do instead
Learn each document by its purpose and owner: prompt book (stage manager, calling cues), light plot (lighting designer, instrument placement), hookup (electrician, circuit/channel assignment), cue sheet (cue numbers and timings), ground plan (set designer), rendering (scenic/costume design). Match documents to roles in rapid-fire drills.
Answering acting-theory items by attributing Stanislavski's system to Strasberg, or treating the Method and the System as identical; likewise confusing Chekhov's psychological gesture with Brecht's gestus.
The names travel together in theatre history surveys, and 'the Method' is used colloquially for any internal approach. Candidates memorize names without the distinctive techniques each theorist proposed.
What to do instead
Build a theorist–technique table: Stanislavski (given circumstances, objectives, super-objective, emotion memory, psychophysical action), Strasberg (affective memory), Adler (imagination, given circumstances), Meisner (repetition, reality of doing), Hagen (substitution), Chekhov (psychological gesture), Brecht (gestus, alienation effect), Artaud (cruelty, sensory assault), Grotowski (poor theatre). Match each to a one-sentence description of the exercise.
Defining dramatic structure imprecisely-placing the climax at the resolution, describing inciting incident and exposition as the same beat, or applying Freytag's pyramid to non-linear contemporary plays without qualification.
Plot diagrams are taught in earlier grades with inconsistent labels, and candidates rely on remembered diagrams rather than analyzing the play in front of them. Freytag's pyramid was derived from five-act tragedy and does not map cleanly onto all forms.
What to do instead
Rehearse a precise beat vocabulary (exposition, inciting incident, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, denouement/resolution) and apply it to at least five plays of different structures, including a non-linear one. For each, justify the climax choice by identifying the moment of irreversible change.
Treating reader's theatre, improvisation, and theatre games as unstructured activities-describing reader's theatre as memorized staging or improvisation as having no rules, and omitting the role of sidecoaching and offers/acceptance.
These forms are encountered in classroom or camp settings where the underlying pedagogy is not articulated, so candidates describe what they did rather than the defining conventions and learning objectives.
What to do instead
Learn the defining features: reader's theatre uses script-in-hand vocal performance with minimal staging and focuses on interpretation; improvisation rests on the 'yes, and' principle, offers, acceptance, and sidecoaching; theatre games target specific skills (concentration, trust, sensory awareness). Connect each to a named objective and assessment method.
Misapplying theatre-safety and legal knowledge-permitting open flame or fog without checking district policy and MSDS/SDS documentation, or assuming any published play may be produced royalty-free if it is 'for a school.'
Candidates focus on artistic content and treat safety and licensing as administrative details handled by someone else; copyright exceptions for classroom performance are narrower than commonly assumed and vary by performance type and audience.
What to do instead
Study the practical rules: performance rights and royalties, the distinction between classroom and public performance, and the requirement to secure licensing before rehearsal; plus hazard-specific protocols for fog, flame, weapons/prop firearms, rigging, and electrical work, including SDS access and supervision requirements. Practice with scenario items that ask who authorizes what and when.