Acting Alone: A Drama Teacher's Monologue Survival Kit

Ian C. Nelson, Librarian Emeritus, former Assistant Director of
Libraries (University of Saskatchewan) and dramaturge (Festival de la
Dramaturgie des Prairies).

Demetra Hajidiacos, a highly qualified drama teacher in Winnipeg, has
taught classes at Prairie Theatre Exchange and has written study guides
for its mainstage productions. A member of the Manitoba Writers’
Guild, she is the author of four plays.

Acting Alone is a practical guide that is a model of clear
organization, with concise chapter summaries readily extractable as
lesson plans. Hajidiacos carefully tailors her theatre exercises and
assignments for maximum effect.

The first two chapters introduce the basics of scene building,
improvisation, and story development; the final two focus on running
auditions and creating a performance evening of monologues. The latter
even includes enough technical detail to be a basic course in simple
staging. In keeping with her tenet “never do anything a student can do
for you,” she recommends judicious use of student stage managers, thus
freeing the teacher for more creative and productive interaction with
the students.

The central thrust of the guide is to have students create their own
monologues using age- and experience-appropriate material. Written for a
significant level of teacher sophistication and experience, the
instructions could readily be assumed for English as well as drama
classes. For those lacking time for this approach, Hajidiacos provides
instruction on how the teacher may write performance monologues for
individual students. She then provides 100 of her own scripted
monologues. While possibly a welcome inclusion for a “survival
manual,” they seem to undermine the purpose of the previous chapters.
The unevenness of these short pieces is also surprising given the
solidly creative and developmental approach leading up to them. Most
successful are the comic monologues, albeit following one simple
pattern. A few gems, however, typify the writing goal of the drama
exercises explained elsewhere in the manual.

While meticulously noting her sources (colleagues and former
instructors), Hajidiacos is candid in drawing attention to the
adaptations she has made to various theatre games and is trenchant in
her opinions about which are most useful in the creation of monologues.