Drama Resources for Schools

Hot Seating

This is when a character is questioned by the rest of the group about their background, the reasons for their behaviour and their motivation. This method can be used for exploring why a character was behaving the way they were.

For example, ask your class to improvise plays around bullying in small groups. Then hot seat the bully, the victim and the bystander and this will allow the class to develop a deeper understanding of the emotions and motivations of each character as well as developing their questioning skills.

Usually the pupil playing the character will sit on a chair in front of the group, although for a more timid group, characters can be hot-seated in pairs or groups. You do need to appoint someone, usually the teacher to take the role of facilitator to guide the questioning in constructive directions.

We use hot seating in many of our drama workshops for more details click here