1.3: Collaborating on a Theme
A theme is an idea, a simple, clear, and powerful idea. Every story you have ever been told was created to teach you something. The more powerful and life changing the lesson, the more sacred the story. Human beings are incredible entities that extract meaning from stories that are not true. It is this ability that has allowed the arts and creativity to thrive. If your story has no theme then it has no lesson and will leave your audience's minds faster than it entered. If you are going to spend months or years of your life on a story shouldn't it be important? Human beings not only extract lessons from stories, but often base our existence on them.
The theme is the heartbeat/ soul/ central message of the story. The theme is power statement in which the entire imaginary world of the play was created in order to deliver. The theme is vital because it will help guide how you develop the characters and their objectives and will also guide how the production is presented. Each character will have a relationship to this theme and this will determine his/her actions. Think of the theme as the glue or force that connects all of the souls that both view and present the production. When starting a play and identifying your theme ask yourself why do you need to tell the story? Why should the audience watch? What makes this story special? Once you have written these ideas down see if you can summarize or synthesize it in one sentence.
Have the group write down themes that would be worth writing a play about. Ask them to write out the inspirational sentence, then see if it can be simplified or refined. Repeat until each person has 3-4 themes. Have them choose the most powerful and present it to the group.
Once again make sure that each member of the group presents their idea for the theme and make sure to write the theme on a visible space for all of the group to see. Once the idea is presented then move to the next until all ideas have been brought forward.
Next write the ideas on the board and give everyone 2 votes meaning that they can vote to select 2 items. Go through each item and tally up the results. Erase the ideas with the lowest votes and repeat the process giving each person only 1 vote. Continue until you have 2-3 ideas and then select the idea with the highest votes.