In simple terms
A friendly intro before the formal notes — no formulas yet.
From Spark to Stage: The Devising Blueprint
Devising is the process of creating an original piece of theatre collaboratively, without a pre-existing script. Your group starts with a common stimulus—like a poem, an image, or a news article—and builds a unique performance from scratch, documenting every step of the creative journey.
Think of devising like being on a team of chefs given a mystery box of ingredients (the stimulus). Instead of following a recipe (a script), you must work together to taste, combine, and experiment with the ingredients to create a brand-new, coherent, and exciting dish (the performance). The process portfolio is your detailed cookbook, explaining why you chose to fry instead of bake, and how you discovered that surprising flavour combination.
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Analyse the Stimulus: Break down the starting point from multiple perspectives to uncover potential themes, characters, and theatrical possibilities.
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Explore and Experiment: Use practical workshop exercises, improvisation, and research into a world theatre tradition to generate raw performance material.
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Structure and Refine: Select the most effective material and shape it into a coherent performance with a clear dramatic structure and aesthetic intention.
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Document and Justify: Curate your 15-page process portfolio with annotated evidence and reflective commentary that justifies your creative choices and demonstrates your learning.
Explore the concept
Use the live diagram and synced steps — play it or tap a step card to walk through.
Full topic notes
Formal explanation with the rigour you need for the exam.
Understanding the 'Creator' Role
In this project, you are not just an actor. The IB guide designates your role as a 'creator'. This is a holistic role that requires you to contribute to all facets of the piece's creation. You must be a performer, exploring ideas physically and vocally. You must be a director, suggesting staging, shaping moments, and giving feedback. You must be a designer, considering how light, sound, costume, and space can create meaning. And you must be a dramaturg, helping to structure the piece and ensure its coherence. Your process portfolio must provide evidence of your active engagement in all these areas. It's about demonstrating your agency and influence on the final product.
Actively propose and test ideas through improvisation and practical work.
Contribute to the research and integration of the chosen world theatre tradition.
Offer constructive feedback to your peers and be receptive to their ideas.
Consider and suggest how performance and production elements can be integrated.
Take responsibility for shaping specific 'moments of theatre'.
Criterion A: Documenting an Insightful Devising Process
Your 15-page process portfolio is the primary evidence for Criterion A. To achieve the top band (9-10 marks), your documentation must be 'perceptive, insightful and reflective'. This means going beyond a simple description of activities. For every workshop, discussion, or rehearsal, ask yourself: What did we discover? What challenges arose? How did this moment change our thinking or the direction of the piece? How did it connect to our stimulus or our research into a world theatre tradition? Use annotated photographs, sketches, mind maps, and short, analytical paragraphs. Select evidence carefully to construct a compelling narrative of your creative journey, demonstrating how you overcame obstacles and how your understanding deepened over time. Examiners reward the 'why' behind your choices, not just the 'what'.
Criterion B: Crafting Skilful and Coherent 'Moments of Theatre'
The final performance is assessed on its ability to present 'skilful and coherent moments of theatre' that effectively communicate your group's intentions. 'Skilful' refers to the proficiency of both performance skills (vocal, physical) and the integration of production elements (light, sound, etc.). 'Coherent' means that these moments connect logically and emotionally, building towards a unified whole that reflects your aesthetic intentions. Every choice must have a purpose. Why is that moment silent? Why is the stage lit with a single, cold spotlight? How does the physical language of the performers reflect the themes derived from the stimulus? The performance should be a clear expression of the ideas and research documented in your portfolio.
Ensure every moment has a clear purpose linked to your overall intention.
Integrate performance and production elements; they should not feel like separate layers.
Rehearse transitions between moments as carefully as the moments themselves to ensure flow and coherence.
Pay close attention to the actor-audience relationship you wish to establish and make choices that support it.
The application of the world theatre tradition should be integrated and purposeful, not a superficial addition.
Your process portfolio is not a diary or a logbook of everything you did. It is a curated, analytical argument. Select only the most significant evidence that demonstrates your journey as a creator. Show moments of failure and insightful learning, not just a highlights reel of successes. Every image, sketch, or quote must be annotated to explain its significance and how it propelled the process forward. Justify everything.
Criterion C: Articulating a Compelling Rationale
The 10-minute presentation is your opportunity to provide a clear and coherent rationale for your work. It is assessed under Criterion C. You must articulate your intentions, explain the connection between your piece and the stimulus, and, crucially, provide an 'effective justification' for your application of conventions from a world theatre tradition. This is not a performance. It is a formal, academic presentation. Structure it clearly, speak confidently, and use precise theatrical terminology. The best presentations demonstrate a deep, practical understanding of the chosen tradition, explaining why its conventions were the most effective tools to explore your themes and achieve your aesthetic goals.
Worked examples
See the formulas applied — reveal one step at a time, like the exam.
Portfolio Entry Task: Your group is devising a piece from the stimulus 'The sound of a ticking clock'. Document a moment of failure or a creative block your group experienced and analyse how you overcame it. Justify how the solution influenced the piece's dramaturgy.
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Initially, the 'ticking clock' stimulus led us to clichéd ideas of deadlines and time running out. Our improvisations felt predictable. A key moment of failure was a workshop where we tried to create a physical representation of a clock face with our bodies, which felt literal and lacked theatrical depth (see annotated photo A). The energy in the room was low, and we were creatively blocked.
Task: Draft the opening two minutes of your 10-minute presentation for a piece titled 'The Weight of Silence', devised from a poem about loss and influenced by the principles of Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theatre.
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Good morning. We are here to present the rationale for our devised piece, 'The Weight of Silence'. Our process began with the stimulus of the poem 'Funeral Blues' by W. H. Auden. We were struck by the line 'Stop all the clocks', which we interpreted not as a literal command, but as an internal, psychological state of paralysis following profound loss.
How it all connects
The big idea sits in the middle — tap a linked idea to explore the link.
Tap a linked idea to see how it connects back to the main topic — that connection is what examiners reward.
Glossary
Try to recall each definition before you reveal it.
Quick check
Answer in your head first — then tap to check. No pressure.
Revision flashcards
Flip the card. Test yourself before the exam.
Devising
The process of creating an original piece of theatre collaboratively from a stimulus, without a pre-written script.
Key takeaways
Review these before you close the topic — retrieval beats re-reading.
- ✓
Actively propose and test ideas through improvisation and practical work.
- ✓
Contribute to the research and integration of the chosen world theatre tradition.
- ✓
Offer constructive feedback to your peers and be receptive to their ideas.
- ✓
Consider and suggest how performance and production elements can be integrated.
- ✓
Take responsibility for shaping specific 'moments of theatre'.
Practice — then mark it
The whole point: a real Cambridge question, marked mark-by-mark.
Test Your Devising Process Knowledge
Test Your Devising Process Knowledge
Extra simulations & links
PhET, GeoGebra and other curated tools — open in a new tab.
Frequently asked
Checkpoint
One marked question is worth ten re-reads — close the loop before you move on.
Reading it isn’t knowing it — prove it.
Before you move on: do Test Your Devising Process Knowledge on paper, snap a photo, and get examiner-style feedback on exactly where you win and lose marks.