There are many ways of finding ideas for creating drama. You can use scripts, themes and characters from exisiting plays or use other stimuli such as music, poetry and artefacts.
A theme is a recurring idea that鈥檚 present throughout the work. Which themes are present in your script 鈥 love, loss, hope, injustice? What is it about on a wider level than the story itself? Perhaps there鈥檚 an idea here that you can take away from the script to explore in more depth.
Remember you can combine sections of the existing text with new work of your own. You may choose to use a lot of the original script, a little or none at all. It鈥檚 up to you. The important thing is that the original script stimulates ideas, wherever those ideas take you.
This clip shows a group of students performing an alternative version of Act 1 Scene 4 from Shakespeare鈥檚 Romeo and Juliet. This time the setting isn鈥檛 Verona but a modern-day aerobics class. The director selected an extract from the scene that would still work in a completely different scenario to the original play. The prevalent theme of dealing with heartbreak remains so the story of Romeo and Juliet is the stimulus to a new piece of work.
Researching the play
It鈥檚 important to research your play or text so you can learn more about its themes. The play, Blood Brothers by Willy Russell is set in Liverpool in the 1970s, a time of high unemployment and poverty with a big divide between rich and poor.