Helen O’Grady at Schoolkutti Library
When the Helen O’Grady speech and drama class entered the fourth week, the kids were all prepared to play the characters from “Ashoka, the Great.” Just like other Saturdays, the session started with their favourite drama song and speech exercise to help them project their words while delivering lines. To prepare the children for their roles as characters in the major drama and to assess the depth of their understanding of drama, they were separated into two groups and given a short scene and a handful of dialogues, then instructed to extend the scenario with many more dialogues and perform on stage. They all did an outstanding job without any surprises. Following both groups’ performances, the conversation regarding how to employ properties successfully on stage was also mentioned. The previous lesson was also about deciding on and assigning appropriate characters to the children. The drama “Ashoka, the Great” officially began after the character division. The dialogue and the significance of giving each character different emotions were addressed in the last lesson. Throughout the drama lesson, everyone’s body language represented the royal people’s attitude. The lesson closed with a discussion about how they could modify their personalities to make them even better.