Mock PPP this October


Practical Performance Proposal (PPP) 25%

Students  produce a proposal of 250 words with supporting visual materials and a report of 1,000–1,250 words.

Students at HL and SL must adopt a directorial perspective and write a rationale, outline and detailed description of a proposal for staging a performance. This proposal originates from one of the IBO prescribed performance stimuli. It should include written work, scenarios, images, storyboards and any other materials that convey the essence of the proposed performance, and the practical preparations necessary to realize it. Students should ensure that the proposal contains appropriate visual materials and does not depend solely on written descriptions. Students at HL also include a report on the wider theoretical context of the proposed performance, based on the research they have done.

Let’s look at a HL example


And the examiner’s comments:




Step one:  select one of the three stimuli







Write up a brief 250 word proposal for what we could do to bring that stimuli to stage.

DUE Thursday



6 responses to “Mock PPP this October

  1. My inspiration for creating a piece of theatre art to the stage is boundary functions, 1988 originated from Germany. I want to bring the idea of each person’s space into a unique theatre piece, as well as the concept in regard to giving the piece a sense of each person’s life (space). It will be a physical theatre piece, physical theatre movement in particular. In the actual exercise, there are lines projected to divide each person, which describes each person’s personal space. In terms of form, it is considered social work of art in view of the fact that there are interactions happening in the original exercise. This art will not exist unless there are 2 or more people contributing or playing in it, this is why there will be more than 2 people in my practical performance piece. It will have a sense of movement/dance and through the medium of theatrical movements, one will interact with another. To keep the historical convention of boundary functions, I will also project lines combines with wave lines to express each one’s feeling. For instance for a movement that represents melancholy/sadness, the line will be distorted and move in a different way. In addition, this piece of theatrical movement will bring Asian styles in regard to associate with European movement art culture. In terms of costume, it will be black and white since there are two different cultures that are going to be put together as a piece. Each color will represent their own culture and the background music will change every now and then when the piece is given.

  2. My inspiration to create my own artwork comes from an online-youtuber called thisisitproductions, through his video called “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.” This video consists of two different storyline, where the first set of the storyline is about a notebook puppet that conducts some other puppets on how to think creatively. He showed two sets of clouds and let the other puppets see what the clouds could represent on the puppets’ minds. All of them say that it could be a dog, a rabbit, or a cat. However, after approximately 1.20 minutes of it, the story goes negative. The storyline becomes how their imaginations become wild and sadistic.
    This video in the end gives a theme of creativity and conformity at the same time. In terms of a theatrical technique, it gives the same connotation and technique as creating an expressionism style of theatre. Therefore, I would be making a theatre performance based on expressionism. The people that should perform would be 10 people. The storyline that I would convey is about some citizens of a country and the leader. The purpose of this performance is to show that communism suffers the citizens. The staging position should be center-stage, where the audiences only face the performers. The plot of the story would be a leader who gives convincing speeches about reforming the country into a successful one. The citizens believe and elect him as the leader. However, he started to make his own ideology that brings the citizens into huge suffers.

  3. Boundary functions is a practice and demonstration of the personal space a character would have and how respected each boundary is by other characters. Boundary functions aims to show the audience how personal space and relationships vary with other characters. My inspiration for this piece comes from a personal standpoint and because of that I will include more of a real feel to the play.

    The play will include 5 stage characters, 3 Female and 2 Male. The staging will be indoors. The 5 characters would demonstrate 2 acts. 1st scene demonstrating all actors at a young stage in life (age 5) where they will show a lack of personal space. The 2nd act demonstrates the same actors at a later but still young stage in life (age 18) where they show more obvious use of personal space. The play describes how personal space gradually changes and the changes we see in people. The actors will have very obvious and melodramatic methods of overreacting their personal space in both acts. There will be no props included as this is dependent on the actors movements. The play describes the story of change in personal relationships and personal as time goes on. I chose 5 people because you can concentrate on the relationships easily and also have a wide variety of people. I will use parts of expressionism in the play to demonstrate the use of exaggeration. I use exaggeration to get the message clearly shown to the audience.

  4. The stimuli could be brought to the stage by transforming it into a short comedy bit. My idea would be to create a scenario where we have 6 different characters (due to number of people in our theater class), each acting as a different type of character in our society. For example, we can have 2 people play a new couple who are all over each other and isolate themselves form the rest of society therefore are away from everyone else’s personal space, however share each other’s personal space being all lovey dovey. Then we could have another person play a dirty street beggar (someone who’s looked down on and avoided in society) who everyone avoids and doesn’t want into contact with his personal space. The fourth character could be someone whose personal space everyone wants to get into, maybe some high caliber, good looking celebrity with many fans who fawn over him. The other two people could be neutral characters who fill up the rest of the space as characters who avoid the beggar, ignore the couple, and are attracted to the celebrity, possibly trying to ask for his autograph and picture.

    The point of this entire scenario is to express how your role in society effect who comes into your personal space and who’s personal space you enter. We have a wide array of characters from different walks of life and social statuses; the lowest character being a beggar, the middle range characters being the couple and two neutral extras, and the highest status character being the celebrity.

  5. There will be about six people doing the play. Three people will be doing the good side of being creative and the other three will be doing the bad side of being creative. It will be an expressionist play. The normal ones will be using different colors of clothes, colorful ones and the expressionist ones will be wearing black or other gloomy colors. The play will be similar like the video in which the first three will be creating things normally and creatively following some rules that are applied because they are still innocent. The other three will be creating some bloody and violent things. The first three will be the “young version” of the other three. The other three will be the “older version” of the first innocent three. They will do weird and cruel things, because as they grow older they start thinking differently as they learn more things in life. Background music will change every now and then and it is a drastic change. Just as a realism into expressionism theme song. To keep the tradition of “Don’t hug me I’m scared,” I will put several props during the play, for instance a heart, some colored papers and glasses. It will keep the convention of creative expressionistic theatre piece as it is. In terms of lighting, it will also turn drastically following the theme song’s style and mood. This piece will last about 5-6 minutes and all the actor and actresses come to stage one at a time.

  6. My inspiration for creation my own theatrical work of art is through the video, “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared,” by thisisitproductions from Youtube. In the beginning of this video, the story implies a good meaning and supports the idea of being creative. However, in the middle of the video it shows that their idea of being creative has become something twisted and psychotic, giving a disturbing vibe towards the audience. In the end, the video leaves the audience with a message that contradicts the one conveyed in the beginning.

    “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” uses the theatrical style of expressionism, which is what my theatrical performance will be based on. The purpose of my performance is to convey the idea of educational importance in Korean society, who puts pressure on the importance of education over all other matters in their school life. There will be 8 people who will be partaking a role in this performance. The play is heavily dependent upon the symbolism conveyed through the usage of colour. Actors will have their faces painted to give a misleading first impression to the audience. However, the actors will give the basis of the true meaning through the way they will portray the character, through exaggerated movements that imply corporal punishment, suffering, and suicide. The staging will be center-stage, where the audience faces the students, and it will be supported with lighting, using bright colours in the beginning of the play, before switching into monochromatic colours in the end.

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