Devising Original Theatre from Stimulus - TCE Drama (Tasmania)

What this dot point is asking

The Exploring and Devising unit asks you to make theatre rather than interpret an existing script. Devising is the collaborative process of building an original work from scratch, usually beginning with a stimulus: an image, a poem, a news story, an object, a piece of music or a theme. The stimulus is a springboard, not a subject to illustrate. Strong devisers interrogate it, asking what it makes them feel, what tension or question it contains, and what they want an audience to think by the end.

Material is generated through exploration. Improvisation is the engine: the ensemble plays scenarios, tries physical images, and follows impulses without judging them too early. Techniques such as still images and tableaux, thought-tracking, hot-seating and forum-style experiments throw up far more material than you will use. Devising deliberately separates generating from selecting. First you make a surplus of possibilities; only later do you decide what serves the piece. Recording these explorations, on video or in a journal, means good accidental moments are not lost.

Shaping is where devising becomes craft. Raw improvised material must be structured so it builds and means something. You impose a dramatic structure: a clear beginning that sets the world and the question, a development that complicates it through rising tension and contrast, and a resolution that lands the artistic intention. Devised work is often non-linear, using episodes, fragmented time, motifs and montage rather than a single continuous story, so transitions become a design problem in their own right. Tension is engineered through conflict, surprise, withheld information, rhythm and the relationship between stillness and action.

The artistic intention is the spine. It is a single clear statement of what you want the audience to think, feel or question. Every choice, a sound cue, a repeated gesture, a lighting state, is then justified by whether it serves that intention. When an ensemble cannot agree on the intention, the piece usually drifts into a series of clever but disconnected scenes. Agreeing the intention early, and revisiting it whenever a decision is contested, keeps a devised work coherent.

Collaboration is assessed as much as the product. Devising rewards negotiation, generosity and shared ownership: listening to weaker ideas fully, building on others rather than only defending your own, and resolving disagreement through trying things rather than arguing about them. Providers report on your contribution to the collaborative process, so your journal should evidence the ideas you offered, the problems you helped solve and the times you adapted your vision for the good of the whole.

For TCE this unit feeds directly into externally assessed ensemble performance. The devised piece is where you can deliberately apply a chosen style, perhaps Brechtian episodes or physical theatre imagery, to a self-generated story. Keep a process journal that tracks the stimulus, the explorations, the selection decisions and the evolving intention, because the thinking behind the work is examined alongside the work itself.

When you reflect on devised work, trace one decision from stimulus to stage. Explaining that a single photograph of an empty chair became a recurring physical motif, then the final image that delivered your intention about loss, shows the examiner a controlled creative process rather than a lucky accident.