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IB Theatre Production Proposal

By Wojtek

June 16, 2025

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If you're trying to understand the Production Proposal component of the IB Theatre syllabus, you've come to the right place. In this post, we’ll break down the assessment and share practical tips to help you succeed.

 

 

IB Theatre Production Proposal

 

 

  • At SL, the Production Proposal accounts for 30% of the final grade, and for HL, it makes up 20%.  
  • This component challenges students to take on the role of both director and designer, imagining how they would stage a published play text for a live audience. 
  • Students select a play they haven’t studied before and develop a detailed vision for how it could be brought to life on stage. This is a theoretical proposal – students don’t need to stage the play itself, but instead present their creative ideas in a written and visual portfolio.  
  • Each student is required to submit a production proposal of up to 12 pages, combining written text (not exceeding 4,000 words) and visual materials. A list of all sources used must also be included.

 

 

The Production Proposal

 

The Production Proposal is all about envisioning theatre – taking a published play text and crafting a staging proposal that reflects your own artistic vision. Students identify key ideas in the play and articulate their unique theatre-maker intentions: what they want to communicate to an audience, how they will do it, and the emotional or intellectual impact they hope to achieve. 

 

Students must decide on both a performance style (like naturalism, surrealism, expressionism, etc.) and a performance space that supports their vision. This proposal must explore how performance elements (like movement, voice, gesture, and staging) and production elements (like lighting, set design, costume, sound, and props) work together to bring meaning to the stage.  

 

A critical part of the proposal is analysing a significant moment from the play and showing how that moment can be staged to create TEAM – tension, emotion, atmosphere, and/or meaning. This can be anything from a dramatic entrance to a key exchange between characters, but it must provide enough depth to demonstrate the student’s creative approach in action.  

 

While students cannot alter the text of the play, they are encouraged to introduce new design choices or additional stage action (when appropriate) to support their vision. These choices must be clearly explained and justified in the context of the original script.

 

It is very important to highlight that students do not actually perform the play. Students are assessed purely on their completed proposal i.e. their written and visual portfolio

 

 

Tips on succeeding 

 

  • Choose a play that inspires you. Pick a published play that genuinely interests you and sparks your imagination. The more it resonates with you, the stronger your vision will be.  

 

  • Be bold with your ideas. This is your chance to think like a professional theatre-maker. Don’t be afraid to take creative risks – just be sure you can justify your decisions and link them back to your theatre-maker intentions.  

 

  • Make TEAM your compass. Your goal is to create moments that stir the audience – with tension, emotion, atmosphere, and meaning. Every design or performance element should serve that purpose.  

 

  • Think like both a director and a designer. Think about how will the actors move and speak? How will lighting and costume support the story? Your vision needs to consider both the look and the feel of the piece. 

 

  • Stay grounded in the text. Even as you add your own creative ideas, remember that you must stick to the text. Your choices should emerge from a deep understanding of the script rather than overwrite it.

 

  • Learn from exemplars. One of the best ways to guarantee a high mark is to take inspiration from other successful works. Click here for a plethora of Production Proposal exemplars.

 

 

 

We hope you found this post helpful. For more useful materials associated with the IB check out the wide variety of IA, EE and TOK exemplars available at Clastify and other guides available on our blog

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