Education

Nicole Stinton has been coaching, teaching, lecturing and running workshops in theatre and the performing arts for students and young adults for twenty-five years. Although she specialises in the voice (both singing and speech) and musical theatre acting, she has also run sessions in devising drama, dramatic literature, script interpretation, acting as a business, fundamentals of design and directing.

Working with secondary schools and performing arts schools to train tomorrow’s theatre practitioners is important to Nicole. She values the European tradition of performing artists being both practitioners and teachers, knowing that each discipline enhances the other.   Nicole often works with institutions as a resident director for special projects, to run short intensive workshops and give ad hoc classes. She also coaches individuals who are preparing for exams and auditions on original solo productions, improvisation, scripted monologues and songs.

An advisor to Western Australia’s (then) Curriculum Council on the original outcomes based Drama Course of Study, Nicole has an intimate knowledge of curriculum development for the arts and the educating of young people. She has been writing textbooks on Drama for senior secondary students since 2006. While these are widely used in Australia, they’re also studied by some performing arts students in Asia. In the textbooks Nicole draws both on her own experience as a professional actor, director and scriptwriter, and on best practice from theatre industries across the world and across history.

Nicole believes in the importance of professional development for practitioners, as much as in the merits of educating young people. Some of her qualifications include a BA in Musical Theatre from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Certificate IV in Assessment & Workplace Training.

Directing

Schools, universities and performing arts training companies understand the numerous benefits of staging plays so their students can perform in front of live watching audiences.

Students are enabled to practice techniques and processes from classes in a production context, they unite to learn new skills and be stretched in ways that aren’t possible during class and to understand first-hand what happens back-stage and behind the scenes. Audiences witness the development of the students through a performance, whilst being entertained at the same time. Productions can even raise general public awareness about the school and increase it’s community profile.

Bringing in an external director to work on a production enables students to learn from a theatre professional in a safe environment. It also can help them form a new theatrical perspective simply be working with someone different.

As both an experienced director and a teacher Nicole often works with schools and institutions to direct productions for performance. Projects vary from scripted plays to musical theatre shows, from short scenes to full-length plays, from published scripts to original devised works.

In-School Workshops

Being a participant in an intensive workshop gives students the chance to build on the skills and content areas from their regular classes by working with an external professional practitioner. They’re able to immerse themselves for an intensive period on a specific Drama subject focus to practice specific techniques and conventions that will help them to create and perform their own drama works.

Nicole comes into schools to run special workshops with students to give them useful insights and practical tips they can apply that will help them with their Drama studies. In a session she draws from her knowledge working as a professional actor, director, scriptwriter and arts manager, and combines it with her detailed understanding of the WACE Drama syllabus gained through her writing of subject text books.

All of the workshops that Nicole facilitates are highly experiential with students exploring the topic through a fast-paced series of practical creative activities. By the end of a session students will have learnt technical and contextual information specific to the topic, as well as extended their skills in the area. With ongoing practice in the regular classroom they should be able to use the new knowledge, skills and processes to create, rehearse, perform, evaluate and reflect on drama works.

The duration of a standard workshop is 3 hours. These can be run as a 1 x 180 minute program, or 2 x 90 minute sessions. Ideal workshop size is for 10 to 18 students. Some programs can be adapted for smaller or larger groups. Most workshops can be extended and tailored to suit a particular subject objective, assessment outcome, or ATAR, WACE, VET or RTO syllabus focus.

In-School Workshops include:

• Acting in Musical Theatre
• Directing for Students
• Helpful Secrets to Lighting Design
• Original Solo Production
• Studying ATAR/General Drama
• Voicing Shakespeare

Coaching

Sometimes individual students are looking for some help in preparing for an upcoming exam or audition. Nicole coaches students on a 1:1 basis to help them as they craft new drama works or prepare scripted monologues for an upcoming event.

Nicole typically coaches students who are studying for tertiary entrance, preparing for internal or external exams, looking to achieve WACE by studying the West Australian Drama syllabus (as outlined by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority).

She also works with teenagers and young adults looking to audition for a Drama School, such as NIDA, VCA, APAN or the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Being a Musical Theatre WAAPA graduate herself, and now studying once again at the Academy towards a PhD, she understands first-hand the demands of Drama School auditions.

1:1 Coaching focuses include:

• ATAR Practical Examination
  • Original Solo Production
  • Scripted monologue
  • Spontaneous improvisation
  • Interview
• Auditioning
  • Monologue
  • Song 

Publications

Of Nicole’s seven Drama textbooks published through Impact Publishing, the latest three are specifically for Year 11 and 12 students in their final school years. The books cover all aspects of theatre; from acting to directing, from designing to stage management, devising drama to playwriting, even from arts marketing to dramaturgy. Whilst perfectly matched with the West Australian Drama syllabus, as outlined by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority, they can also be used by almost any senior secondary Drama or tertiary Theatre Studies student to help them with their studies.

Both highly practical and informative in their approach, the textbooks include heaps of activities, important facts and historical data, together with instructional ‘how to’ guides on the theatre disciplines. The books are packed with details about lots of different drama forms, theatrical styles, acting techniques, performing arts theories and drama processes, together with theatre history, arts culture and social context explorations.

One of the added bonuses of the textbooks is that they contain interviews with real practitioners who work in the theatre both on and back-stage. These professionals share their theatre experience and offer Drama students helpful advice on how to create, rehearse and perform plays. The practitioners are based not only in Australia, but also across the world in Europe, Asia and The United States.

Whether a student studying WACE Drama for fun for the first time, someone who’s been taking extra-curricular acting classes since pre-school, a vocational student or someone about to sit their ATAR exams, these books are designed to really help young people with their Drama studies.

For more information about Nicole’s latest three Drama textbooks, go to Impact Publishing (http://impactpublishing.com.au/shop/listings/drama/).  She has also written a general business communication book Working In A Virtual World, published by Marshall Cavendish in 2013 (http://www.amazon.com/Working-Virtual-World-Practical-Productive/dp/9814398438).