Performing Sketches in English or French
Senior 2 · Music
Performing Sketches in English or French
Lesson 4 of 4
25 min
Actors cannot see themselves perform. A classmate in the audience can: they notice the line nobody heard, the moment everyone laughed, and the time an actor stood in front of another. Professional theatre companies work the same way: after each rehearsal the director gives "notes". Peer review means classmates watching each other's work and giving feedback, comments that help the performers improve before the real audience arrives.
A simple method is two stars and a wish: two strengths and one thing to improve. Useful sentence starters are "I noticed...", "It worked well when...", "Next time, try..." and "What if...?"
A rubric is a table of criteria and levels that everyone uses in the same way, so that feedback is fair. Give each criterion a score from 1 to 4; the total is out of 28.
| Criterion | 4: Excellent | 3: Good | 2: Developing | 1: Beginning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theme and message | One clear message, shown through action | Clear message, sometimes told rather than shown | Message mixed with other ideas | No clear message |
| Script and structure | Clear beginning, problem, turning point and ending; fits the time | All four parts; a little too long or short | One part missing or confused | No clear structure |
| Voice | Every word heard at the back; varied pace, pitch and pauses; clear English or French | Mostly heard; some lines rushed | Often too quiet or too fast | Hard to hear or understand |
| Body and facial expression | Posture, gestures and face show the character and feelings throughout | Expressive most of the time | Few gestures; face often blank | Fidgeting or no expression |
| Use of space | Open to the audience; uses levels and areas; never masks others | Mostly open; some masking | Often in a line or with backs to the audience | Crowded; backs to the audience |
| Character | Believable, with a clear objective; stays in role throughout | Believable; drops character once | Character unclear; drops role often | No character; laughs out of role |
| Teamwork and timing | Cues picked up at once; smooth entrances and exits | Small delays | Several long gaps or missed cues | The scene stops and starts |
Rwanda has banned plastic bags since 2008, but bottles still end up in gutters. Group 3 wrote this sketch about it.
The Bottle That Came Back (theme: protecting the environment), an excerpt
Characters: NIYONZIMA, a student; UMUTONI, a member of the environment club; THE BOTTLE, an actor wearing a sign that says "Plastic bottle".
(NIYONZIMA finishes a drink and throws the empty bottle over his shoulder. THE BOTTLE rolls on from down left and lies still in the gutter.)
UMUTONI: Niyonzima! The bin is right there.
NIYONZIMA: It's one bottle. It's nothing.
(He walks upstage. THE BOTTLE gets up and follows him, copying his walk. The audience sees it; he does not.)
(Thunder: the cast drums on desks. THE BOTTLE lies across the gutter, and the cast raises their arms slowly to show the water rising.)
NIYONZIMA: The path is flooded! How do I get to school now?
THE BOTTLE: (sits up and waves) Hello again!
UMUTONI: Your 'nothing' blocked the gutter. And there are hundreds of 'nothings' like it.
(NIYONZIMA offers his hand. THE BOTTLE takes it, and he leads it to the bin.)
THE BOTTLE: (to the audience) Next time, put me in the bin the first time!
What the class saw in rehearsal: the Bottle following Niyonzima made everyone laugh. Niyonzima spoke clearly in the first scene, but during the flood he stood upstage with his back to the audience, and the drumming covered Umutoni's line "Your 'nothing' blocked the gutter". The ending was clear and quick.
| Weak feedback | Why it is weak | Strong feedback |
|---|---|---|
| "It was nice." | vague; nothing to act on | "The Bottle copying Niyonzima's walk was the funniest moment. Keep it exactly as it is." |
| "Niyonzima was bad." | attacks the person; not specific | "In the flood scene, Niyonzima's back was to us, so we lost his line. Try moving down centre and cheating out." |
| "Too noisy." | no moment, no solution | "The drumming covered Umutoni's most important line. Could the drums stop just before she speaks?" |
Scoring two criteria:
Use the rubric on your own group too. Self-evaluation is simply peer review turned towards yourself.
Tip
Point to a moment. Good feedback names where it happened, what the audience experienced, and what to try. "When you turned your back in the flood scene, we lost your words; try cheating out" does all three.
Rewrite this feedback so that it helps: "Your acting was boring."
Solution (one possibility): "In your long speech your voice stayed on one note and you stood still. Try pausing before the key line and using one clear gesture." It is now specific, about the performance, and actionable.
In a performance, every line is heard at the back, but two actors rush their lines at the end because they are excited. Score Voice using the rubric and justify.
Solution: 3, Good. The words are heard (above level 2), but rushed lines stop it from being level 4, which needs varied pace and pauses.
Write two stars and a wish for the French sketch Monsieur Microbe, imagining that the germ's voice was too quiet.
Solution (one possibility): Star: the germ creeping on tiptoe behind David was very funny. Star: counting to twenty while washing showed the right habit. Wish: Monsieur Microbe's whispers to the audience were too quiet; keep the whispering style but project it to the back row.
A classmate says your ending was confusing, and you disagree. What should you do?
Solution: listen without arguing, ask what exactly confused them, and thank them. Then test the ending on another classmate: if two people are confused, change it.
Remember
Sources and credits
The sample sketch The Bottle That Came Back, the rubric, the feedback examples and the practice were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
