THE SPIRIT OF THE MASK
Bringing Commedia dell’Arte to Life in Schools!

Venue: Double Teaching Space, Drama Classroom, Studio, Theatre, Hall

Step into the rich tradition of Commedia dell’Arte with The Spirit of the Mask, a dynamic secondary school performance and workshop created by renowned practitioner Tony Kishawi. This interactive experience is a perfect blend of performance and education, designed to:

• Demonstrate the essential conventions of Commedia and mask performance
• Showcase characters like Zanni, the Lovers, Il Capitano, Il Dottore, and Pantalone
• Engage students through improvisation, audience interaction, and physical comedy

What Students Will Learn:

• Drama: Develop an understanding of practices, respond to and interpret artworks
• History: Explore the role of Renaissance Italy
• Languages: Connect language, culture, and meaning
• English: Strengthen language for interaction

General Capabilities Focused On:

• Critical and Creative Thinking
• Ethical Understanding
• Personal and Social Capability

KEY LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Years 7-8 Drama (ACARA):
  • Identify and analyse how drama influences contemporary theatre from different times, places, and cultures.
  • Explore performance styles such as Commedia dell’Arte and their use of masks, improvisation, and physical theatre.
  • Investigate characterisation, status, and relationships through performance.

• Years 9-12 Drama (ACARA):
  • Analyse how different performance styles, including Commedia, use movement, voice and staging to create dramatic meaning.
  • Develop and refine expressive skills to communicate dramatic meaning through heightened physicality.
  • Investigate the role of audience interaction and improvisation in live performance.

General Capabilities:

• • Ethical Understanding: Engaging with themes of social status and power dynamics in Commedia dell’Arte.
  • Literacy: Understanding traditional Commedia canovacci (story structures) and their influence on modern theatre.
  • Analysing comedic techniques and applying them to new performance contexts.

Learning Areas:

The Arts (Drama) Strands:

• Developing an understanding of practices Responding to and interpreting artworks

Humanities and Social Science (History):

• Renaissance Italy. Languages (Italian)
• Role of language and culture.
• English Language for interaction.

General Capabilities

• Critical and Creative Thinking Express ideas, concepts, thoughts and feelings creatively.
• Consider and evaluate motivations, intentions, influences and biases.
• Offer and receive effective feedback.

Ethical Understanding

• Apply skills in reasoning, empathy and imagination.
• Make judgements about actions and motives.

Personal and Social Capability

• Initiative.
• Confidence.
• Resilience.
• Adaptability.
• Empathy.

Style/Form:

• Commedia dell’Arte.
• Mask Theatre
• Physical Theatre and Comedy.
• Improvisation.

Themes and Contexts:

• Creativity and Imagination.
• Transformation.
• Roles and Relationships.
• Audience Engagement and Interaction.

Devised by: Clint Bolster, Ben Cornfoot and Tony Kishawi
Directed by: Clint Bolster and Tony Kishawi