IB Theatre IA Criteria Explained: How It Is Marked
The current IB Theatre IA criteria assess the Production Proposal, the only internally assessed component in the Theatre course for first assessment 2024. It is marked out of 20, contributes 30% at SL and 20% at HL, and is assessed by your teacher before IB moderation.
Older resources may incorrectly identify the Collaborative Project as the IA. Under the current course, the IB confirms that the Production Proposal is internally assessed, while the Research Presentation, Collaborative Project and HL Solo Theatre Piece are externally assessed.
What the Production Proposal requires
You select a published play text that you have not previously studied and develop a feasible vision for staging the entire play for a live audience. You do not have to produce or perform it. Instead, you communicate what an audience would see, hear, understand and experience.
According to the current official IB Theatre subject brief, the submission includes:
- A maximum of 12 pages of text and images
- No more than 4,000 words
- A list of all sources used
- A vision addressing direction and design
- Proposals for the entire play and detailed treatment of one moment
The assessment does not reward expensive or spectacular ideas automatically. It rewards theatrical choices that are purposeful, feasible, clearly communicated and connected to your interpretation of the play.
IB Theatre IA mark scheme at a glance
| Criterion | Focus | Marks |
|---|---|---|
| A: Ideas and intentions | Understanding the play and explaining intentions for staging the entire text | 8 |
| B: The proposed design | Visually presenting and explaining the design for the entire play | 4 |
| C: The proposed staging of one moment | Explaining how performance and production elements create TEAM | 8 |
| Total | Production Proposal | 20 |
Each criterion is assessed separately. Strong design work cannot automatically compensate for underdeveloped interpretation, so allocate attention in proportion to the marks available.
The command terms also indicate a progression. Listing names choices, outlining gives a basic account, describing provides relevant detail, and explaining establishes why choices are made and how they affect the audience. The highest markbands require explanation, not simply more detail.
Criterion A: Ideas and intentions, 8 marks
Criterion A assesses your explanation of the play's ideas and your intentions for staging the entire play. Both areas must be thoroughly explained for the highest band.
A(i): Ideas addressed by the play
Identify significant ideas in the complete text and explain how the playwright develops them through dialogue, stage directions, relationships, structure or recurring patterns. Plot summary is insufficient because the criterion concerns ideas rather than events.
Instead of writing, “The play explores isolation,” explain how failed conversations, physical separation and a character's repeated refusal to answer present isolation as a social condition. This moves from naming a theme to interpreting how the text constructs it.
Strong responses select a manageable group of ideas, support them with precise references and examine their development across the play. RevisionDojo's guide to analysing a play text for performance intentions can help convert textual observations into stageable interpretations.
A(ii): Theatre-maker intentions
Your theatre-maker intentions explain your interpretation, intended audience effect and theatrical approach. “I want the audience to understand inequality” is vague. A stronger intention might explain that controlled naturalism will gradually fracture into direct address, making the audience uncomfortable with how ordinary rituals conceal economic power.
Your intentions must apply to the entire play, not only the moment used for Criterion C. They should identify and justify both your performance style and performance space. Do not merely name expressionism or a proscenium stage; explain why the style and audience-performer relationship support your interpretation.
The RevisionDojo guide to staging play texts provides practical ways to connect text, style, space and audience impact.
Criterion B: The proposed design, 4 marks
Criterion B asks you to visually present and explain production design ideas for the entire play. Relevant elements may include performance space, set, props, costume, makeup, lighting, sound, projection and multimedia.
Professional drawing ability is not required. Ground plans, labelled sketches, models, mood boards, palettes and diagrams can communicate effectively when they represent your proposed production and are accompanied by explanation.
Every visual should answer three questions: What is it? How will it be used? Why does it support the intention? A mood board may establish an aesthetic, but without annotation it does not explain how that aesthetic functions theatrically.
For example, corroded metal frames might form increasingly narrow acting areas after each scene. Explaining that this gradual restriction makes institutional control visible establishes design development and audience effect. Feasibility also matters, so consider sightlines, transitions, performer movement and safety.
RevisionDojo's guide to using mise-en-scène when staging play texts can help you combine separate design decisions into one coherent theatrical world.
Criterion C: Staging one moment, 8 marks
Criterion C focuses on one short, concentrated theatrical moment. You explain how performance and production elements create tension, emotion, atmosphere and/or meaning, abbreviated as TEAM.
Choose a moment that demonstrates your intentions in action. It may be brief, but it should provide enough scope to explain changes, interactions and audience effects precisely.
Performance elements
Performance elements include body, voice, movement, placement, use of objects and relationships with performers or the audience. Avoid saying that an actor simply “speaks angrily.” Specify changes in pitch, pace, volume, posture or gesture, when they happen and what the audience should infer.
Production elements
Explain how lighting, sound, set, costume, props or other technical elements interact with performance. For example, a performer might stop downstage under exposed white light as the surrounding sound cuts out. The combination of placement, lighting and silence could shift attention from public conflict to private shame.
You do not need to produce all four aspects of TEAM. Detailed treatment of one or two is often stronger than claiming every cue creates tension, emotion, atmosphere and meaning simultaneously. If your concept deliberately excludes performance or production elements, that exclusion must be fully justified.
Recommended structure and page allocation
The guide's allocation is a recommendation, not an additional marking criterion:
| Section | Recommended maximum |
|---|---|
| Key ideas in the play | 2 pages |
| Theatre-maker intentions | 2 pages |
| Proposed design for the entire play | 4 pages |
| Staging of one moment | 4 pages |
This distribution helps balance the proposal. Labels, annotations and citations within the proposal count toward the page limit, while the separate list of sources does not.
Common mistakes that limit marks
- Summarizing the plot: Explain ideas and how the text communicates them.
- Using vague intentions: Identify an audience effect and the theatrical means used.
- Forgetting style or space: Address and justify both in Criterion A.
- Creating decorative visuals: Annotate images and connect them to intentions.
- Designing only one scene: Criterion B concerns the entire play.
- Listing cues: Explain timing, interaction and audience effect.
- Ignoring feasibility: Treat the proposal as live theatre, not film or unlimited fantasy.
- Leaving sources unclear: Cite borrowed images and ideas appropriately.
The RevisionDojo Production Proposal Grader can help identify missing criterion evidence. Any feedback should support revision, while the interpretation, designs and final wording remain your own.
How the final mark is decided
Your teacher applies the descriptors to the evidence in the submitted proposal, selects the best-fitting markband for each criterion and awards a mark within that band. Teacher marking is then subject to IB moderation.
A component score out of 20 is not automatically a final grade from 1 to 7. Grade boundaries can vary between examination sessions, so use IB Theatre grade-boundary information as historical context rather than a guaranteed threshold.
Conclusion
The IB Theatre IA rewards a clear chain of reasoning: textual idea, theatre-maker intention, whole-play design, specific staging choice and audience effect. Criterion A establishes meaning, Criterion B communicates the production world, and Criterion C demonstrates that vision in one moment.
Explain rather than list, keep the entire play in view and make every choice serve an intention. RevisionDojo's Theatre guides and Production Proposal Grader are most useful for planning and a final criterion-based check.
