Having a bad day
Aim:
To think about ways of resolving conflicts in our daily lives.
You will need:
Props (optional), a group of people.
Duration:
40 minutes (20 to plan, 20 to perform).
Divide the group into smaller groups of 3 or 4. Ask people to think of all the different things that make them angry, annoyed, frustrated or fed up. They need to plan a short sketch including all of their examples, to show one person having a very bad day. Tell them to keep the sketch short and simple as they will need to perform it twice.
Let each group take it in turns to perform their sketch. The audience watching needs to observe all of the instances where the person is getting angry, and think of ways to resolve the problems.
Next each group should start performing their sketch again. On the second performance, someone from the audience can shout out 'stop' when they see something happen to make the character angry. The actors should 'freeze' where they are, then the person from the audience should say what they think should happen to resolve the problem. The actors can then carry on, adding in this suggestion. At the next 'incident' someone should call out stop again, and so on until the end of the play. Do the same for each group.
At the end ask the groups if the suggestions were helpful? Did the actors adapt their behaviour well? Do they think their suggestions for resolving problems could be useful in real life?
This activity might be too complicated for younger children to grasp. Instead they could simply act out short plays about times they have felt angry about something. The leader can then lead a discussion at the end asking for suggestions about how the different situations could be resolved.
After the performances remind everyone that resolving conflict starts at home. In other words, if we want the world to be a more peaceful place, we need to start with ourselves.