Gingerbread Theatre

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Aims

The activity is a first step towards understanding theatre architecture and modelling space. Students experiment with standard materials and prefabricated construction, as well as thinking about the audience-stage relationship, auditorium evacuation issues, and so on.

Key Information

Number of learners Working in groups, we suggest a maximum of 44 students in groups of 4. The project can also be done independently.
Number of staff One teacher
ECTS Credits (if applicable) Not applicable

Learning process

Lecture/seminar Lecture, presentation, discussion (face-to-face or online)
X Making project Making a model, mock-up, plan or design (physical or digital)
Performance project Making a performance or demonstration (live or mediated)
Records and Archives Interviews, photographs and videos of artefacts, annotating archives, creating learning materials (physical or digital)
X Independent study Reading, researching, analysing and evaluating learning materials (physical or digital) in groups or alone

Type of learner

X Student of technical theatre
X Student of theatre design, architecture
X Student of theatre arts
Professional
Researcher
X General public

What You Will Need

Duration and schedule

The activity takes 3 hours:

30-120 minutes preparation by the teacher, gathering materials.

150 minutes with the learners: 15 minutes introduction 90 minutes working in groups 30 minutes presentation and discussion 15 minutes cleaning up together

Optionally, allow 30-90 minutes additional time for eating and celebrating the last session before the Christmas break!

Room or type of space

An ordinary classroom.

Equipment

  • Kitchen equipment such as knives, bowls, and so on.
  • A large wooden board for each group of learners to build the structure on.
  • Cleaning materials.

Materials (consumables)

  • A lot of ready-made pieces of gingerbread in all forms and sizes
  • Jelly-bears in different colours (as spectators)
  • Icing sugar, water and/or melted chocolate as a kind of “cement”.

Not necessary but nice:

  • Sweets in all forms and sizes for decoration and to add detail.
  • Water or tea to drink.

Learning resources (books, websites)

Models, drawings, photos and books of theatre and event architecture for inspiration.

Process

Preparation

Buy cookies and organize the material. Prepare a quantity of ingredients for each group. Ask the students to come not hungry and with extremely clean hands.

The learning activity

The teacher starts by introducing the activity, showing some architectural models, talking about size, human and building proportions, different kinds of auditorium and stage relationships, and so on.

Each student group then has one and a half hour to build their model. At the end of this time the group discusses the results.

Assessment and feedback

Feedback can be immediate, as part of the discussion.

Our Experience

Tips

Ask the financial department how to cover the cost as learning material (and not food!).

The session is the favourite lesson for years in our classes. Unfortunately the pandemic meant we could not allow students to eat food which was touched by a lot of hands, so we had to stop doing this project. We will be started it again!

This is a very fun activity!

Additional information and resources

Our gingerbread model of the Festspielhaus, Hellerau:

IO 4 27 BHT Gingerbread Theatre 01.jpg


Festspielhaus Hellerau 1913.png

Credits

This learning method was made by: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bri Newesely with Dipl.-Ing. Sarah Kamender
Institution: Berliner Hochschule für Technik

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