MTC Script Notes

The Melbourne Theatre Company has built a free suite of “Script Notes” videos giving insights into how actors, directors and playwrights work with scripts – as part of the company’s award-winning Education Hub.

The videos showcase the variety of ways cast and creatives use their scripts in rehearsal.

Detailed annotations are published alongside interviews with leading Australian artists including Ari Maza Long, Jing-Xuan Chan and Kristie Nguy (The Robot Dog), Nathan O’Keefe and Christie Whelan Brown (Kimberly Akimbo: A Musical), Kala Gare and Musical Director Victoria Falconer (My Brilliant Career), Director Anne-Louise Sarks and Steve Mouzakis (The Removalists) and Playwright Nathan Maynard, Syd Brisbane and Director Isaac Drandic (37).

Script Notes was awarded the Drama Victoria Award for Excellence in the Digital/Online Delivery of Drama.

The program helps students learn about Australian Curriculum Years 7–12 Drama and English, and VCE Theatre Studies Unit 3.

They develop drama practices and skills through the analysis of professional work, considering contexts such as audiences, viewpoints, intentions or purposes, style/form, as part of planning interpretations of scripted drama.

Students interpret and analyse language choices, dialogue, imagery and more in plays and interpret how representations of people and culture in texts are drawn from different contexts.

To support classroom integration, downloadable lesson plans accompany some Script Notes, helping teachers make the most of the videos in their lessons.

As one teacher from Richmond High School shared, ‘Melbourne Theatre Company has put together some incredible resources … I've already used Script Notes a couple of times which has been great for the kids.’

Script Notes is freely accessible via the Melbourne Theatre Company Education Hub, an ever-expanding library of digital resources. After signing up, teachers can easily create share links for their students to bypass the login hurdle.

Discover more at: https://www.mtc.com.au/education/education-hub/category/script-notes

Photo: Actor Kala Gare and Musical Director Victoria Falconer. Photographer: Eva Otsing