Getting Started
Starting a Theatre Club in a Thai community can be challenging. It is important that Volunteers always partner with community members to implement projects, so the first thing you’ll need is a Thai ally. This could be someone in your community or school but must be someone who you can count on to follow through with the project. You may have to do some convincing in the beginning but hopefully this person will become enthusiastic about the project. It may help to withhold mention of the Bangkok Festival right away since the idea of this might be intimidating to your ally.

Start small. Propose using a play or starting a drama club to help students with their English. It is relatively unlikely that one school will have as many students interested in English or theatre as you will need to produce a play. It may help to call a meeting of several English teachers in your district to discuss the project/club and its potential benefits to students. Ask the teachers to find out how many of their students would be interested in being involved in a drama club. Warn teachers that if they want their students to be involved in the project they too must be involved. Give the teachers the ‘club application form’ to take back to their students. Schedule an audition date and have audition materials (scripted dialogues/monologues) prepared and handed out to students at least 2 weeks before the audition. It may also be useful to hand out information about various technical positions that your club will need students to fill before auditions so that students not interested in acting will still apply to the club.

Choosing a Play
Either choose a play or select a few for your club to vote on. If you want your club to vote on a play, we suggest writing short summaries of the plays and translating those summaries into Thai. It will be to your advantage to give options of plays that you are familiar with already. Once your club has selected a play you must adapt the original into language that your students will be able to handle. You may also want to consider simplifying the plot of the play or altering scenes depending on the age of your students.

Techniques for helping students learn the play
It’s imperative that students understand the story of the play they will be performing. One technique for accomplishing this is working with a co-teacher to either translate the play from English to Thai line by line, or to translate the basic storyline of the play scene by scene, and then reading through the play with students in English and having your co-teacher verbally fill in gaps in understanding in Thai. If you’re working with older Mateom students, this technique can be adapted into having the students work out translations of the play into Thai using dictionaries. Many plays have been adapted into movies and some of these may be found on video or VCD with Thai subtitles or soundtrack. Depending on how closely your own adaptation of a play resembles a movie version, it can be very helpful to show students the film version. Be aware, however, that students may have a tendency to copy exactly what they see actors doing on screen for their own performances and that convincing them that other methods for portraying characters are just as good or better might be difficult.

Casting
When helping students to understand the story of the play, having them read through the play together line by line in English will also be helpful in giving you an idea of who might be best for each part. You will want strong readers for lead roles, though bearing in mind that pronunciation coaching will likely be necessary for all student actors. Have a variety of students read through each character and keep notes on who does well and who seems to enjoy each part. At the end of each read through session, talk with students casually about which character they think they’d like to portray. It won’t be possible to give every student the part they want but through these conversations you can get an idea on how to please as many of them as possible and also to give them clues on which role you think they might be the best at and suggest that they might prepare to read that character for the next scene read through. This casting technique can be used in lieu of having official auditions or before your scheduled audition day. If you end up with a lot more students in your drama club who want to be on stage than there are parts in your play, try and create other roles for them besides acting. Perhaps there is some opportunity for students to choreograph a dance routine or create a musical performance to be inserted somewhere in your play. You may also consider creating small parts for students who might double as a member of the backstage crew. Another idea is to make the role of one character into two separate characters in order to utilize more students on stage.

• See Good Audition Practices for tips on assigning characters

Rehearsals การซ้อม

• see TYT Rehearsals