Tableau is the theatrical technique in which actors freeze in poses that create a picture of one significant moment in the play. Stillness and silence are the hallmarks of Tableau, so it's understandable why this drama strategy appeals to teachers for classroom use! But to really get the most out of Tableau work that enhances the reading of a story, novel, play, or text book, student actors have to do deeper reading, thinking, and rehearsing.
This HOW TO guide gives teachers a detailed approach to leading student actors in the creation of effective, productive, artistic, and meaningful use and extension of Tableau drama strategies.
Tableau with Lines of Dialogue: Tableau drama activities can be expanded by the creation and incorporation of dialogue. Learn how to enrich the Tableau drama experience by inviting student actors to create dialogue and deepen the inferences they make about what the characters in a Tableau are thinking and feeling.
Human Slide Shows are series of Tableau-several frozen pictures presented in chronological order to show what happened first, second, third, etc. in a sequence of events. To create the frozen, silent, concentrated poses, students must think like actors and directors who read to understand events and make artistic choices about how to stage the action so that an audience understands or infers what happens.
This guide provides step-by-step instructions, classroom management recommendations, examples from curriculum, reproducible task descriptions, and assessment criteria for use of this arts integrated teaching and learning strategy with students in Grades 3 and up.
About the Author: Rosalind M. Flynn has led Tableau work with students and teachers since 1995. In years of teacher workshops and classroom residencies, she has sharpened her approach to productive student involvement in classroom drama strategies.
Dr. Flynn focuses her classroom work on the principles of arts integration. Curriculum content provides the material for the drama; the tools and skills of the art form of theatre increase the discipline and the quality of the work. The solid integration of content and theatre leads to productive and meaningful work.
Resources. Other resources for this work may be found on Rosalind's web site RosalindFlynn.com and her blog-DramaticApproachesToTeaching.com. Visit Vimeo.com and search for her name to find videos of the Tableau work and more.
Rosalind earned her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland. She is the head of the Master of Arts in Theatre Education at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She is also a national teaching artist for the Education Department of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
