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Remember: theatre is also TECH! It's not just acting.

You have the whole world tech to study.

Having been in you same situation multiple times here's what I did.

Units on each part of tech:

Note: all units contained instruction on color theory as it applied to the unit.

Props:  types (set, personal, hand, etc.), how to read a script to determine the props, prop lists, sourcing, making (this led to a fun day of making prop foods from extra-firm mashed potatoes)

Makeup: design and application: straight (you as you), character: fantasy, animal, sci-fi, old age, and their favorite: grossies & gories (i.e. bruises, impalements, gashes, wounds, tons of fake blood - this unit also included them doing the makeup for the annual before prom "Don't Drink & Drive" presentation that feature "the dead" in the results of a car crash as well as the ghosts of victims,

Sets: design from script, design original, historical research, types of staging, scaled ground plan (1/4" & 1/2"), elevations, perspective sketch, white model, color model (both at both scales), digital design using Sketchup (which is FREE for schools). One assignment for fun was their "fantasy bedroom" - no holds, no budget worries, go as over the top as you want! Another was do a set for a fairy tale.  I also included a subunit on building flats and platforms. This is how I slowly built up a stock of both.

Lighting: types and use of instruments, creating a plot for a set (so this has to come after Set unit). Limited hands-on experience (schools had next to nothing for equipment).

Costumes: reading a script to deduce needs, historical research, sketching a costume (I had them use a line-drawing fashion model under the paper as a guide), shopped v. built show, costume plot for whole show. Fun projects included: fashion police makeover of someone, prom attire for their date and themself, dream wedding attire.   Subunit - learning to sew (machine & handstitch); did this in conjunction with the district's children's theatre arts program from whom we sewed simple costume pieces.  The great ah-ha moment here was them realizing they could now fix their own clothes.

Sound: read script for needed FX. Create plot. Do same for mic needs.  Foley art. Radio drama where they whole the story is just told in sound.  Create an original story using only SFX.

I also did a whole unit on puppetry that incorporated scriptwriting and film making.  They had to write an original script (they often did a fractured fairy tale), then film it, edit the film, add SFX and present to class.

Several years when the class was exceptionally small - the first quarter covered the above units and then the second quarter had 2 parts: 1. Choose a play and do a full work up on it: full script analysis incorporating history of play and how it reflected the times in which it was written and how it still speaks to today, their director's vision, then each of the above units fully realized for their chosen show.  2. Acting - a fully stage monologue or duet scene.     

If I had 4 or more students in the combined group, I'd find a small, short play that was appropriate for taking out to nearby elementary school.  Some included: a Thousand Cranes, Land of the Dragon, The Great Cross Country Race, Bremen Town Musicians, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland. One year I was lucky enough to have a group who were also choir members, so we did The Fantasticks.  Most of the plays I used came from TheatreFolk, Plays for New Audiences, Art Reach: Children's Theatre Plays, and Pioneer Drama.  They had to do it all for the show: set that could tour, costumes, makeup, etc. and they go perform (followed by pizza of course).  Great experience for them to bring it to full fruition and then have an adoring audience.  Also great PR for your program.

Every now and then I'd also do a unit on Oral Interp.  This worked well doing radio dramas, reading children's stories aloud, etc.

With all of these its easy to tailor them so that the level and depth of detail, quality of execution, style increase in difficulty they height they are in the program.

Hello! Here are some ideas that might be helpful to you:

1. We provide a lot of high-quality curricula and educational materials. Check out our Acting Workshop series and our Playwriting Curriculum series. (This is actually the first-ever comprehensive playwriting curriculum written specifically for high schoolers!) I think having a small class would actually be ideal for this. The acting series provides great scene study material, and the playwriting curriculum spans several weeks. You can preview all of these materials in their entirety for free on our site to ensure they fit your needs.
2. Study a play! All of our plays come with free lesson plans to help bridge the gap from stage (or imagination) to the classroom--where students can analyze character and theme, and study related extant works, and even make their own creative response. You can view our entire catalog here: Great New High School Plays for Teens | Gitelman & Good Publishers. Again, you can preview everything in full before purchase. Many of our plays also include the opportunity to schedule a virtual session with the author, so your students can learn about the creative process and have the opportunity to ask questions. I think this would definitely help from feeling repetitive!

I hope this helps or gives some food for thought! We got your back, so don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything or have any questions at all. :-)

My Advanced Acting elective every year is a mix of students who are on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year with me. I do a rotating offering of three electives: Improvisation, Solo Performance, and Scene Study. Lately my classes have been super-small -- I had three in Scene Study last year and will have three again this year. I find that specializing in one of the three areas makes it pretty easy to provide very different experiences each year, although at least lately that hasn't translated into higher enrollment! With three in scene study, students were always working on two different two-person scenes at the same time; that way if someone was absent we could really focus on the scene with the two who were there. I'm happy to talk more about how I run the electives -- feel free to message me. 

Hannah, I managed levels 2-4 in combined classes for many years.  The problem here is the size.  If there is any chance of students opting into the class after school begins, talk about your planned curriculum and ask the enrolled students to ask other qualified students to consider a schedule change request.

For years, my Theatre II class was placed 1st period, which conflicted with tons of AP classes.  The class was always small, but I really enjoyed those classes. 

For the first nine weeks, we collaboratively wrote a play for K-3, using a folk tale, myths & legends, Aesop's fables, Cherokee stories, etc., as the starting point.  Once, the entire class was female, and they wrote a brilliant piece in which important women in history came to help a little girl with a report she had to write for class. 

By the time we finished writing, which is what we did most of the time, the casting was already set because a student was best in each role as we changed parts through various drafts.  Then we designed and built costumes and props.  (We were lucky to have a costume storage room with lots of pieces to choose from as a base.)  We designed all of the props and set pieces to be carried to the activity bus in one trip.  In a compact town like Asheville, we were able to go to one elementary feeder school per day during our class period.  We did a preview show in our theatre for our childcare littles and their high school "big friends" and the exceptional children classes.  (In other schools where I taught, we took a field trip to hit all the feeder schools in one day, eating lunch at one of the elementary schools.) 

We never canceled a performance, and students knew from the beginning that they might have to sub in for an absent student.  They had the bus trip to make adjustments.  Once, three students were absent in a class of seven.  The show went on.  When we arrived at each school, they had to look at the performance area and make adjustments.  I loved watching them take ownership of their show.  They also learned so much about presentational theatre, which set them up well for musicals.

In the second nine weeks, we did a playwriting unit, chose and worked up contrasting monologues, and constructed a resume.

You might also ask your English and history teachers what they would like to see performed in their classes.  Shakespearean monologues or short scenes?  Pieces of famous speeches?  Poetry?  

Sometimes, students have a foggy idea of how subsequent levels of Theatre Arts classes differ from Theatre I.  Don't wait for the class to reach a reasonable size to pack it full of learning opportunities that will stretch the students and make them believe this class is a great use of a credit.

Best of luck.  

Agree that this is a great opportunity to introduce the students to the directing/tech side of things. If you have them pick a play and then have them build a model set (or have them build 2 sets for different shapes of stages), make a costume collage (finding pictures of costumes in the right style/colors they would put each character in), mark the script for blocking/lighting/soundcue needs, have them make specialized props out of thrift store materials, etc.

I work with a community theater and periodically an actor will show interest in directing, but they have no idea what all goes into it, despite decades of acting experience. So even if your students are only really interested in acting, it's good for them to understand at least some of what the other people are putting into the show.

Totally agree with all the comments above, and, being a set designer, I'm going to add a couple.

There's a lot of information online about how to design sets; some of it is good (in the sense that it approaches it from industry standards), and some of it is bad (often put out there by folks who just want to be noticed on YouTube). So the trick, unfortunately, is to learn the differences, and one of the main ones is that there are no shortcuts. You don't start to design a set by pulling flats. 

To (maybe) get you started, here's a list of posts I wrote on my blog about the subject, coming from the viewpoint of forty-odd years doing it professionally:

https://setdesignandtech.wordpress.com/?s=set+design&submit=Search

There's a lot more on the blog, but I hope these help.