Drama

Oral communication is increasingly becoming an integral part of everyday life.

Loreto Kirribilli offers private tuition in Speech and Drama and Public Speaking. The program is designed to equip students with lifelong skills in oral communication.

The classes cover public speaking and managing an audience, improvisational and scripted drama, voice production, presentation skills, confidence building and strategies for dealing with performance anxiety.

A yearly assessment is offered by the Australian Speech Communication Association (ASCA). At each level, students are given the choice to present a talk on a topic of their interest using visual aids, perform extracts from prose, poetry and drama, and perform fluent and expressive readings.

They learn to make impromptu speeches and facilitate the exchange of ideas in a discussion with an audience. ASCA presents each student with a report and certificate on the completion of their examination.

Strong oral communication skills are an important asset at school and later in the workplace. With the desire to build confidence and hone their skills in presenting, many students at Loreto Kirribilli choose to undertake private tuition in Speech, Drama and Communication.

The program is designed to equip students with a practical toolkit of oral communication skills that include: talking and persuading on current topics, leading meaningful discussions, maintaining audience attention, articulating responses to questions, creative techniques to optimise delivery, improvisation, impromptu speaking, conviction in delivery, voice projection and articulation.

The Loreto Kirribilli Production is an opportunity for students who are passionate about drama and theatre to deepen their knowledge, skills and understanding through work with professional theatre practitioners including directors and designers.

The Drama Captains and Drama Councillors work together with theatre professionals to participate in the process of staging a production. These student leaders can audition for acting roles, work as assistants to the director and designer and provide production support in many other ways.

The aim of the production is to build collaborative skills to stage works that provide positive messages about human resilience, relationships and how challenges and adversity might be dealt with.

Loreto Kirribilli students are given priority when choosing which production to stage so that roles for women are significant and challenge reductive stereotypes. Some productions may have an all-female cast playing both male and female roles or in some years, productions may invite students from other schools to participate.

The Loreto Kirribilli Interhouse Theatresports Competition is a house-based competition that aims to create a positive theatrical experience and atmosphere in the spirit of Felicity. It involves House teams of students from Years 9 to 12 competing in improvisation challenges.

The Loreto Kirribilli Drama Department coordinates extra-curricular acting and improvisation workshops for Loreto students who wish to pursue their passion for the performing arts.

These lessons are designed to help students develop and refine performance confidence and acting skills.

There are many important skills that students can learn through participating in these workshops. These include the ability to think quickly and creatively, to work collaboratively, to build and sustain character, confidence and skills in narrative. These workshops also have a wonderful positive benefit on the well-being of students due to the enormous amount of fun they have in these sessions.

In 2022, the Performing Arts Faculty will launch a new acting and performance opportunity for students in Years 7, 8 & 9.

Working with the elected Drama Captains, Vice Captains and Councillors, students in in each house will collaborate to devise, rehearse and stage a performance. The performance may be scripted, adapted or totally devised, depending on the interests and skills of the group.

The process will be led by the Drama Performance staff member with set rehearsal times. The competition will be staged towards the end of Term 3, adjudicated by two external adjudicators with an award for Best Play and Spirit Cup.