For those teaching VCE Drama and/or Theatre Studies in Melbourne or regional Victoria, a fantastic resource for yourself and your students has just become available.

Drama Victoria began discussions with the VCAA in early 2009, expressing the real need for teachers of these studies to have Drama solo performance examinations and Theatre Studies monologue performance examinations filmed for sale on DVD.

Apart from being an excellent teaching tool in the classroom, one that can be retrieved time and time again, a DVD of these performances is helpful to teachers in regional areas who find it difficult to come to Melbourne with their students to see the annual Top Class Season of Excellence concerts, where these performances are live on stage.

While the VCAA film and sell on DVD the final stage of the Season of Excellence each year, Top Acts at Hamer Hall, this mixed program of Drama, Dance, Music and Theatre Studies performance exams, usually only consists of 2-3 Theatre Studies monologues and 3-4 Drama solo performances. In the past, Top Class (not Top Acts) was only filmed once for DVD in 2005 for one of the three Drama concerts.

The new Top Class Season of Excellence DVD 2009 consists of 4 DVDs. There are 3 DVDs containing all 33 performers in Top Class Drama that year, plus another DVD consisting of all 10 performers in Top Class Theatre Studies. Add to this, every student performer is interviewed on the DVD about various aspects of their performance structure, how they developed the exam etc.

This resource was a large and expensive project, so all credit goes to Helen Champion, Performing Arts Coordinator at the VCAA for taking this on. This will NOT be a regular project and these DVDs are expected to be a resource for teachers for some years to come.

Drama Victoria is the sole distributor of the VCAA Top Class Season of Excellence DVD 2009. All four DVDs (Drama and Theatre Studies) are sold as a single package for the low price of just $38.50 (inc GST and p&h). A real bargain!

I highly recommend this resource.

Download the order form from Drama Victoria here.

If you teach VCE Drama and/or Theatre Studies in the final two years of high school in metropolitan Melbourne or regional Victoria, have you ever wondered how many students are enrolled in these subjects and the difference between the two? Well, I did a bit of research and have a 5-year trend outlined below:

Source: Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority

Actual trends in the past five years indicate Unit 3 & 4 Theatre Studies numbers have remained constant, while Drama enrollments at the same level have clearly dropped each year (over 20% decline from 1910 students in Unit 3 in 2005 to just 1500 in 2009). While Unit 3 & 4 enrollments are less than numbers in Unit 1 & 2 in Drama over all five years, interestingly in three years (2007, 2008, 2009) numbers in VCE Theatre Studies have actually increased in Unit 3, compared to Unit 2.