A Busy Semester for VCE Drama at St Mary’s

The VCE Drama class at St Mary’s has had a busy first half of 2025. We have improvised and created a variety of characters and performances. We have developed skills in analysing and evaluating and have continued to grow in our knowledge and use of Drama terminology.

In Term 1, we travelled to the Melbourne Theatre Company to see the outstanding play, ‘37’ by Nathan Maynard. This was a brilliant professional performance which explored the internal workings of a country AFL club and the culture and treatment of its First Nations players. The play was both hilarious and moving, with inspiring performances from the actors and clever use of production areas, like sound design. The students thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to see the play and did some insightful analysis on their return to school. Many aspects of this play inspired their own devised ensembles.

Term 2 was jam packed with ensembles! Students worked collaboratively to devise their own performances on the theme, ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’. Using the REM song, the picture book, ‘Cicada’ by Shaun Tan, and the ‘Invasion Poem’ from ‘7 Stages of Grieving’ by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman as their stimulus material, each group created engaging, thought-provoking and, at times, comical performances. They used their expressive skills to develop varied and creative characters, presenting their final pieces in the Marian Theatre to a small group of family, teachers and friends.

We are looking forward to welcoming a class of Year 10 Drama students to the fun in Semester 2, as we continue improvising, creating and devising and also seeing a professional performance together at The Capital Theatre in Bendigo.