The Haunted Lift

On the ground floor
Of this ultra modern tower block
In the dead middle of the night
The lift doors open with a clang.

Nobody enters and nobody comes out
In the dead middle of the night
The lift doors close with a clang.
And the lift begins to move slowly up .......
With nobody in it, nobody but the ghost of a girl
Who lived here once on the thirteenth floor
Of this ultra modern tower block.

One day she went to play,
In an old part of town
and never came back
She said she was going to the corner shop
But she never came home.

Now her ghost keeps pressing
In the dead middle of the night
The button for the thirteenth floor
But when the doors open with a clang
She cannot step out.
She gazes longingly, at the familiar landing
But only for a moment, then the lift doors clang in her face.
And her tears silently flow.

Sometimes on the thirteenth floor, her mother and father
With her photo beside their bed,
Wake up in the dead middle of the night
And wonder who it could be
Using the lift at such an unearthly hour.

In this ultra modern tower block,
There is no thirteenth floor.

The Haunted Lift

Lesson One:

Resources - Poem of “The Haunted Lift”, Sugar Paper and marker pens.

Aims and objectives:

Work co-operatively in mixed gender groups.
Contribute ideas without calling out.
Listen to others.
Learn the following drama terms. Set, role and character.

1.

Warm-up. Clapping (name game). Ice breaker/Introductions.

2.

Read the poem. What is it about? Draw out the mystery of the 13thfloor. What do they
associate with the number 13.

3.

Re-read the contradiction in the last line. Do class have an explanation for this?

4.

Ask the class if they were to create a piece of Drama based on the poem, where would it
take place? Introduce the word set.

5.

Divide the class into mixed gender groups of approximately 5. Give each group a piece of
sugar paper and a marker pen. Each group build a description of the “The Haunted Lift”.
Put these on the wall.

6.

Introduce the idea that there is a caretaker who looks after the “ultra modern tower block”
who is female. The person who will play this rolewill need a description of the
character. What will we need to consider? (Voice, movement and mannerisms). Write
these ideas down on sugar paper and display with descriptions of “The Haunted Lift.”

7.

Imagine the Drama is about to begin. Ask the class to rearrange the seats to define the
acting space. Steer them towards sitting in the shape of the lift.

8.

Define onstage/off stage.

9.

Evaluate work - what have we achieved today? What Drama terms have been used/learnt.
Can anyone find any of these words on the “Drama Vocabulary” display?

The Haunted Lift

Lesson Two:

Aims and objectives:

To make decisions about characters.
To introduce Teacher in role, role-play, depictions and
freezing.
To look at stereotyping with regard to appearance.
To introduce spontaneous improvisation.

1.

Recap last weeks lesson with particular reference to decisions made and the mystery of the
thirteenth floor mentioned in the poem.

2.

Get the class to sit in the shape of the lift.

3.

Teacher describes the lift to the class with reference to the class description. Teacher stands
in the middle of the lift and tells the following story. “If you stand in particular place in
the lift and look over your right shoulder you can see, written in something that looks
like red paint the words; “PLEASE HELP M.” The only person who ever sees these
words is the caretaker. Early every morning, she goes into the lift and cleans off the words
but the next day, in exactly the same place, the words have reappeared and she has to clean
them off again and again.

4.

Class move out of lift shape and back into a circle.

5.

Class discussion about what they have just heard.

6.

A new family have just moved into the ultra modern tower block. A parent and a child. As
a class, they must decide on : gender of parent, gender, name, age of child and the floor
they will be living on.

7.

In pairs, they have three minutes to create a depictionwhich shows the parent and child in
their new flat.

8.

It is later that day and the parent realizes that s/he needs bread and milk. The parent noticed
a corner shop close to the tower block as they were moving their furniture in. They send
their daughter/son to the shops with a lift. When the child returns from the shop, s/he gets
into the lift. There is someone in there. Short spontaneous improvisation in pair to show
who the other person is.

9.

Class get into lift shape. Chose a volunteer to go into role as the child.

10.

Teacher in role as the caretaker in the lift. She is looking over her shoulder and cleaning the
words off the wall as in the story. The pupil enters the lift and the caretaker tells the child to
get out of the lift as it is dangerous. Let the improvisation run for a few minutes.

11.

Explain that this was a spontaneous improvisation. Discuss who were the characters?
Impressions of the caretaker (what influenced these impressions ie physical appearance),
reaction of the child? Why did s/he react in this way. What did the caretaker actually say to
the child? Has the caretaker been stereotyped?

12.

Evaluate what has been learnt in terms of drama and in terms of stereotyping. Refer to new
words learnt on “Drama Vocabulary” display.