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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.
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.
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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