Elective drama is a 200 hour Stage 5 elective course. Students explore through performance, making and researching a variety of theatrical styles and traditions and how physical and vocal skills are used on stage to realise these.
The main themes revolve around scripted and non-scripted drama and students perform these in a range of formal and informal contexts. Topics include improvisation and theatre sports, playbuilding, script analysis and performance, designing sets, promotion posters, costume and writing a director's portfolio. Students learn about the elements of performance in production, utilising modern theatre technology.
In Stage 6 drama, students explore acting and improvisation, theatre elements and a full scale class production. They also explore a range of theatre traditions and develop their own research and workshop exercises to demonstrate their understanding to other students. The HSC course requires students to develop an individual project of their own choice from a range of mandated options such as monologue, design, video, script writing and design based upon selected texts. Students are also externally examined based upon a group devised performance and have to complete a written examination based upon topics involving Australian and overseas dramatic traditions.
Manly Campus Drama students have consistently been selected for prestigious post-school courses.