Scene-Speare!: Shakespearean Scenes for Student Actors

If you’re a drama teacher, Shakespeare should make it onto your stage at some point. But what if you’ve hated him since high school yourself? Shakespeare is a great challenge—one that is easier to embrace than skydiving. On the Drama Teacher Podcast, we heard from two teachers–Heidi Frederic (Romeo & Juliet) and Hilary Martin (Much Ado About Nothing)–about their experiences directing Shakespeare for the first time. They have some great tips to share! 1. Ask for help Heidi says: ‘I was calling all the troops to help me out. “I cannot do this alone!”’ In this day and age, you don’t have to go it alone. Where it’s a workshop in your area, an experienced teacher at a neighbouring school, or even just online—there are many place to access help. Here are a few resources to get you started: • No Fear Shakespeare • Drama Resource • Look for online exercises (like this one on Iambic Pentameter) • The Drama Teacher Academy • eDTA Open Forum through Educational Theatre Association Hilary notes: ‘Your English teacher is your friend…don’t be afraid to collaborate with the English teacher.’ Call on those who’ve taught Shakespeare in a different context, especially when the students are decoding the script. 2. Consider a variety of script options There are so many ways to skin the Shakespeare “cat” and make it manageable, especially the first time. Consider: • Adaptations • Abridged versions • One acts vs. full lengths Here are some Theatrefolk resources and plays to get you started: • Romeo and Juliet 1-hour cut with annotations • Much Ado About Nothing 1-hour cut with annotations • Shakespeare adaptations and parodies including Drop Dead, Juliet! & Much Ado High School • Shakespeare in an Hour • Solo-Speare a collection of Shakespeare Monologues • Scene-Speare a collection of Shakespeare Scenes 3. Find something to connect to and pull it into your comfort zone When you’re doing something far out of your comfort zone, there are ways to find a little comfort. Find something that you connect to and that you relate to, to make your experience smoother. For example, Heidi adapted Romeo and Juliet and set it in 1994 Seattle with a grunge theme. She says: ‘It helped the students understand the story and the language a lot better.’ Hilary’s students identified Much Ado as a soap opera, which helped them latch on to how they could act extremes in the play. She notes: ‘The over the top acting will also help the audience, who may not have had a lot of exposure to Shakespeare.’ • Read this blog post about setting Shakespeare in another time. • Read this one about putting Shakespeare in context. 4. Consider the unique rehearsal process with Shakespeare Consider pre-rehearsal activities to get students more familiar with the material. In Hilary’s case, her group watched film versions of Much Ado About Nothing, browsed lesson plans, and looked at small parts of the language. Expect that you (as a director) and the actors will have to look at the language and analyze the script a lot more closely. Heidi found No Fear Shakespeare books to be helpful, as well as taking the time for a close reading of the material. It’s critical to take an intensive look at the phrasing and wording, so that students aren’t just up there saying the words. They need to know the story and what’s going on. Hilary relates: ‘The key is going slow.’ She and her students spent a lot of time just reading through the scenes and stopping to analyze whenever the language got confusing. Embrace the challenge! Ask yourself: “Why not Shakespeare?” For more inspiration, check out these Drama Teacher Podcasts:• Drama Teachers Directing Shakespeare for the First Time • Teaching, Performing, Directing Shakespeare • Shakespeare from the Outside In

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays For….Scene Work. You want interesting scenes for your students. You want a variety of scenes for your students. You don’t want to do the same scenes over and over and over and over with your students. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! Sixteen in Ten Minutes or Less This collection of 10 plays can be performed as an evening of theatre. Or it offers the perfect scene work collection for a class. Each short stands perfectly well on it’s own without any prior knowledge of the characters. Ten/Two Ten plays for two actors. All the plays are easy for students to self direct and self block. Have a group larger than twenty, double up on the scenes and seen how different groups interpret the same material. Chemo Girl and Other Plays A collection of plays that examine the impact of cancer as seen through the eyes of teenagers. Each scene can stand alone which means you can have a full class all working on their scenes at the same time. An excellent project if you want to present a cross-curricular aspect to a scene unit. How can cancer be theatricalized? Close Encounters of the Undead Kind This collection has three short plays filled with unique characters. Most of which are vampires, zombies, and others of the undead variety. Have a class of beginners? Divide the plays up so that groups are dealing with smaller chunks within the larger piece. Ten Minute Play Series: All Girls Need scenes with all girls? We’ve got you covered. One of our most popular scenes comes from this collection. It shows Juliet and Ophelia in the afterlife. And they are NOT happy. C’mon and Dance What about students that struggle with lines or perhaps are learning English as a second language. Give them a non-verbal scene to work on. This piece fits the bill perfectly. Will and Whimsy: Sixteen Dramatically Illustrated Sonnets of Shakespeare Want to combine scene work with Shakespeare, but you’re not ready to tackle the bard in the original language? This is a wonderful collection of scenes that illustrates the themes in 16 of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Scene-Speare: Shakespearean Scenes for Student Actors But what if you are ready to tackle Shakespeare? This scenes are already cut down for class use and offer vocabulary help, character questions, and story specifics. A perfect place to start with students. Competition Scenes: Duets Want a collection of duet scenes that come from published plays? Use them for individual event competitions, use them in your classroom. The Middle School Scene Book And just to take care of our middle school folks. Here’s a collection of scenes that come from published plays just for middle school students. We got you covered. Image credit: Rockdale County High School (Conyers, Georgia) production of Will and Whimsy by Alan Haehnel. Directed by Dave DiPietro.

Episode 169: Drama Teachers Directing Shakespeare for the First time If you’re a drama teacher, at some point Shakespeare should make it on to your stage. But what if you’ve hated him since high school yourself? Shakespeare is a challenge, it’s a great challenge and one that is easier to embrace than sky diving. Maybe. Listen to a couple of teachers talk about their first time battling the bard.

Lindsay and Craig spread the love for Scene-Speare!: Shakespearean Scenes for Student Actors and Solo-Speare!: Shakespearean Monologues For Student Actors.