I have always been a movie buff, from the time I was a little kid. I remember my mom taking me to see Disney’s Robin Hood at the theater (you know, the one where Robin Hood and Marian are foxes, and Prince John is a thumb-sucking lion…PJ? PJ! Oh, I like that…Hiss, put it on my luggage!). And I remember going to my first drive-in movie with my brother - Young Frankenstein.  Probably not the best movie for a 6-year-old to watch - I believe a lot of the humor was lost on me until later years!

But movies have always been important to me and played a big part in my life…especially historical epics!  Oh, my…that year that both Braveheart and Rob Roy came out?!?!  I thought I’d died and gone to historical cinema heaven! And, of course, being a huge Shakespeare/Elizabethan buff, I adore movies like Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love.

But what on earth does this have to do with Staging Shakespeare? Well, one thing that has been very helpful, not only to my cast but also to the students in my English classes, is to teach Shakespeare’s plays utilizing good film versions of the plays. Of course, when I teach Henry V to my 8th graders, we watch the Branagh film - read one act, watch the act; read the next act, watch that act, etc. When I teach Hamlet, we watch bits of both the Gibson and the Branagh films, and when I teach Macbeth, I’ve found that I prefer the BBC version of the play with Nicol Williamson (remember him as Merlin in Excalibur?) over the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench play, although I like to show scenes from both. (Speaking of Excalibur - Here’s some trivia for you - Cherie Lunghi, who played Guenevere, also did a fabulous Beatrice in the BBC’s Much Ado About Nothing! Kind of cool that two Excalibur cast members also did some mean Shakespeare!)

So back in May and June, when the weather here was icky and we couldn’t start rehearsing outside, our cast spent a great deal of time working on the text - reading parts aloud; figuring out what various words and phrases meant; determining what their characters might be thinking and feeling at any given moment. Once we were finished, we would watch whatever scenes we had worked on that day from the BBC version of Shrew, with John Cleese as Petruchio. Talk about a HOOT! John Cleese is just a great actor anyway, but seeing him come in for his wedding to Katharina, dressed in some hideous burlap-type vest, no shirt on underneath, but an enormous yellow sunflower stuck to the vest…and a hat with the longest feathers sticking out in front of it…I could go on…I won’t…except to mention that Grumio had some weird face painted on his bare belly, under a very similar ensemble as that of Petruchio’s! The kids loved it, and they saw some really outstanding acting in the process. We also watched the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film version, which is such an enjoyable movie, especially when you consider that Burton and Taylor were married at the time they made the movie…it definitely created quite the dynamic for their performances!

Using film versions of the plays seems almost like a no-brainer, really. In this day and age of audio and visual technology, why wouldn’t a teacher or director want to use film to help their students really get into Shakespeare? The only downside I can see is that you don’t ever want your actors to feel like they have to play a part exactly like some famous actor did it. I was hesitant about showing the Branagh Much Ado last year, simply because I didn’t want anyone to feel like there was only one way to play these characters. But I also showed them the BBC version (the one with Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice) in order to demonstrate that there are definitely different ways of approaching the characters, the scenery, the costumes, the everything of putting together a stage production…as long as you don’t deviate from Shakespeare’s text!

Just a suggestion, too, concerning those BBC plays - If you look for them on Amazon or other commercial websites, you’ll probably only find them available to purchase as sets - all of the comedies, all of the histories, or even all 37 plays in one huge bundle. If you are interested in buying them individually, go to the Folger Library website - www.folger.edu - and you can purchase them through their gift shop, one at a time. I’ve slowly been building my collection this way, purchasing the ones I need for school or for whatever plays I am considering directing in the future.

And finally…a little ritual that I started last summer as our production neared completion and we were almost to Opening Night. When I start to worry about the play coming together, actors learning their lines, costumes being finished, sets being painted, but I know I’ve done everything I can do and it’s up to the kids, I pop in my copy of Shakespeare in Love.  If I have time, I’ll watch the whole film, but sometimes I’m just too tired to stay up and watch it after my children are in bed, so instead, I will skip to the scene where Will’s Romeo and Juliet is about to start.  Henslowe’s tailor, playing the Chorus, is stuttering backstage, and Will looks like he would rather slit his wrists than let the play go on.  Then the Chorus gets pushed out onto the stage, and it almost appears that he won’t be able to get the words out…but suddenly, his voice is perfect, exclaiming, “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene….” I absolutely love that entire part of the movie, where they show what it might have been like the very first time R&J was on the stage…except, of course, where a gorgeous Gwyneth Paltrow saves the day! And then, when the play is over, and the audience just sits there, like they didn’t know what hit them…until finally, thunderous applause and ovations! Ah, yes…it helps me sleep better that night!

As I believe I’ve said before, I don’t know what I would have done last summer if it hadn’t been for the plethora of outstanding books out there on directing plays, especially those that are specifically about directing Shakespearean plays.  Ultimately, I would have been up a creek without the proverbial paddle as I would not have had a clue where to start, how to continue, nor how to finish up a production.  One of the most important aspects of any play is blocking, and prior to reading said books, the term “blocking” only had something to do with felt-making or other textile arts, in the back of my very fuzzy memory banks!

The kind of blocking that a director has to be concerned about is the movement and positioning of actors on the stage that will facilitate the performance of the play (thanks, Wikipedia, for that definition!). Sometimes, as one is watching a play, it may seem that the actors are just moving where it feels natural, or where the mood strikes them at the time. Nope…Just about everything you see on stage has already been choreographed by the director and rehearsed that way by the actors. The goal is to have it look as natural as possible - as if they are just doing it on the spur of the moment.

One thing I learned in my Shakespeare-directing books is that you don’t necessarily want to create the blocking too early in the rehearsal process. Because of the importance of your cast understanding the language so they can communicate that understanding to the audience, you want to wait until they really know what they’re saying so that they can help figure out the blocking along the way…and they can understand why you might not want a certain character to be downstage during a key moment when that character would naturally be lurking somewhere else.  The beauty of directing and acting Shakespeare is that Will was an actor, before he ever wrote any plays, and so when he did take up the quill, he knew what to have the actors say in their lines in order to ”facilitate the performance of the play” - blocking!

One book in particular that I’ve been re-reading for ideas and suggestions is Mastering Shakespeare: An Acting Class in Seven Scenes, by Scott Kaiser.  In this book, Mr. Kaiser (or Mr. Kay) teaches seven different important aspects of acting Shakespeare to a fictional class of actors.  The book is written like a play, with dialogue between the students and the teacher.  This approach makes the book an interesting read, as well as incredibly helpful to anyone preparing to act or direct Shakespeare.  The one aspect that I’m particularly interested in right now is the idea of the speech measure, or the chunk of text that communicates a single idea to the audience.  It can be as brief as “O!” or as long as “How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath/To say to me that thou art out of breath”?  This particular concept is super important for actors to be aware of as they need to make sure each speech measure is clear to the audience before continuing on to the next…and successful blocking can help the actors do just that!

Last year, I felt like one of our best scenes in Much Ado was Act III, scene 2, specifically the part where Don John is telling Claudio that Hero has been unfaithful to him.  One of the reasons this was such an effective scene was the fact that we blocked Claudio actually punching Don John when he is told that Hero is “every man’s Hero.”  But even before that very cool bit of blocking (that my actors figured out on their own…awesome!), Don John managed to convey a great deal of information to the audience through his clear speech measures.  I had people come to me afterward and say, “I totally got what he was saying with, ‘I know not that, when he knows what I know.’”  It was because our Don John didn’t rush through his words, or the ideas being conveyed, just to get the dialogue finished.  And recent rehearsals have shown that this same actor (Gremio this time around) is doing this, seemingly naturally as I haven’t mentioned this idea since our initial read-throughs.

Funny how I just realized that I keep talking about text issues - speech measures, meaning - but the post is supposed to be about blocking.  I just can’t help but talk about the text - It’s so important for understanding Shakespeare that it has to go hand in hand with anything else you do!  Otherwise you can have a ton of great blocking…and an audience who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on!  Not good!!

For some very funny theater definitions - especially the ones for “blocking” and “blocking rehearsal” - check the link below - Enjoy!

http://www.communitytheater.org/humor/dictionary.htm

We’ve gotten started! As soon as I got back from vacation, we dived right in and started our first week of rehearsals.  Although I was a bit jet-lagged from my trip, I think our first couple of rehearsals were successful, largely due to the energy and good humor of the great cast I get to work with!

As we read through the first two acts this week, I began reminding the kids how important it is to understand what they’re saying…that the only way to help their audience understand what’s happening in the story is by understanding the words and phrases in the lines they’re speaking.  A couple of smart-aleck teenagers said, “But isn’t that what acting is for?  We will act really well and pretend like we know what we’re saying, and then the audience will get it!”  Yeah, nice try, but we’re still getting out my copy of Shakespeare’s Words and working through some of these phrases from the 16th century!

Overall it was a good first week. My problem initially (besides the jet-lag) was that I can easily remember what the end of last summer was like - once we had blocking down and the rehearsals began to look more and more polished. I had forgotten what the early rehearsal process is like…clunky, repetitive, and even dull at times. At first I was a bit disconcerted by this - but then I began to remember what the first part of last summer was like, and what really got me excited all over again was remembering how much trouble some of my actors initially had last year with reading that “crazy Shakespearean English.” They really stumbled over words, and had a hard time remembering when to breathe, when to pause, and when NOT to stop at the end of a line (if there is no end punctuation, you keep going!). They were learning things about theatre and drama, as well as the English language, and it was quite a stretch for many of them.

What I realized as I saw our first week come together is that most of these students have become very proficient dramatists, and have become accustomed to the nuances and particulars of Shakespearean language.  I even stopped and asked them occasionally what some words or phrases mean, and almost always they were able to discuss it and figure it out (sometimes with help from Shakespeare’s Words, and other times with no help at all).

As I reviewed my directing books, I came across a passage in one of them that reminded me of how important it is to be an energetic, enthusiastic director. No matter how dull the process might be - how repetitive - how much you get tired of hearing people mispronounce “Padua” - it is still your job to be the cheerleader. Forget the jet-lag…forget anything else going on in your life…In order to make Shakespeare come alive for your kids, you have to show them that you’re having a good time. And once you build a summer of memories from your first production, believe me - You’ll have plenty of great memories to keep you going strong!

The title of this post may seem a bit strange…I mean, good grief!  After everything I’ve written thus far as to the importance of sticking to the text, why would I even entertain the possibility that the text might be less than critical to the staging of Shakespeare?

This topic occurred to me as I began packing for our upcoming vacation to Hawaii (courtesy of my very kind mother-in-law - Everyone should be blessed with a mother-in-law like her!). I considered all of the physical necessities for myself, my husband, and my two young kids. I made my list and checked it several times. But then I thought about the most important item any bookworm must consider when preparing for long flights and time sitting around on a beach drinking pina coladas…What book(s) will I bring?!?

This is critical - this could make or break a great vacation!  So I decided on The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse, which I’m finishing up for teaching my British Literature class.  A hilarious read, it will keep me chuckling on the plane!  I also chose Master of Verona, which I have already read once, but want to read again as there is so much detail to the story, I want to really get my head around the plot and the characters.

However, because rehearsals for our Shrew production start when I get back from Hawaii, I know I also need to take my script and my Arden copy of the play so that I can be 110% ready to work with my cast next week.  I know I’ve said it before, but it’s really important for a director to choose a play that he/she likes…A LOT!  You will be reading, reading, and re-reading that script over and over again before opening night even gets close, so it really needs to be a play that you will enjoy that much!  Choosing Shrew was a good thing for me as I love reading it over and over - I notice new things with every read, just like I did with Much Ado last summer.

So, why is it important that a director be that familiar with the script?  Isn’t it good enough to know the plot, the characters, and the basic storyline?  Although I’ve never directed a non-Shakespearean play, I would suspect that regardless of the play you’re directing, the answer to that question is a resounding, “NO!”  First of all, when you’re dealing with Shakespeare, you have to start with the text…all of the clues to acting Shakespeare are in the words he wrote.  It’s really a miraculous thing - once you set kids to figuring out what all of the words mean - the classical allusions and the 16th-century hunting, clothing, and culinary terms, just to name a few - they start to figure out where their character is coming from and what he or she is feeling and thinking. Even starting with the meaning of a character’s name can be very helpful to the students. For last year’s production, I was able to find a list of what some of the Much Ado characters’ names mean. Two of the most telling were the meanings of Borachio and Claudio. Borachio, partying friend of Don John, means “drunkard,” and Claudio, whose personal hang-ups cause all sorts of misery for his bride-to-be, means “crippled.” In Shrew, Bianca means “white,” which is important to the story as it is Bianca who appears to be pure and perfect to all of her suitors - it is only later that we discover that she might not be the submissive little angel Lucentio thought he was getting!

Knowing your play…sticking to the best possible edition you can find (I HIGHLY recommend the Arden editions, as well as checking with a First Folio facsimile for punctuation and capitalization questions)…helping your cast learn what the words, phrases, and idioms mean…all of this will help you create an amazing production that your audience can understand. Remember that if your actors don’t know what they’re saying - if they’re only memorizing words and phrases that are meaningless to them - there is no way your audience will have a clue as to what’s going on.  That would be a shame not only for your audience, but also for your cast.  Help them stage a successful, fun Shakespearean play - help them understand the words - help them stick to the text!

Aaahhh, teenagers!  How I love and adore working with the little pains in the…Okay, you all have to know by now that I’m kidding!  Yes, they do try my patience now and again, but I couldn’t ask for a better job!

What on earth prompted that?  Tonight is our first read-through of The Taming of the Shrew and I have to admit that I’m pretty excited about it!  I’ve been looking forward to starting this production ever since last year’s Much Ado finished up!  Again, though, I forget that not everyone is as insane as I am about all of this…even my actors who have other commitments and lives beyond the stage!  Several of our kids are involved in soccer right now; a few run track at the local high school; and many of our kids have afterschool/evening jobs.  I understand that they are busy little bees and that spring semester seems to be even busier than fall!  So there are some kids who will be late coming tonight - that’s okay, I understand.

One of my actors, though, came in and said he would be about an hour late.  I asked if he had to work because he does put in a lot of hours at the restaurant where he’s employed.  He sheepishly admitted that no, he was instead going to go target shooting with some friends.  Target shooting?  Shooting guns?  “Yeah, we get to fire automatic weapons today!”  Okay…you’re going to miss half the read-through because you get to go shoot guns at targets?!?  Hmmm…

After much discussion and explaining to him that that was not an acceptable excuse for missing half of a read-through, he agreed that he probably could have scheduled his “ostentatious display of force” for another time (great line from John Wayne, by the way!).  As he was so sheepish and willing to admit that this was a poor choice on his part, I said that he could be a little bit late, but not a full hour.  I believe he told me I was awesome, or something along those lines. :)

I love it when a teenager will admit that they made a choice that wasn’t one of their best and then will do what it takes to make things right.  I know these kids all have lives outside of school and outside of drama, but their willingness to be here warms my heart - especially when they would really rather be shooting guns at innocent paper targets!

So, now that a couple of days have passed since our first read-through, how did it go?  Very well!  A great deal of pizza was consumed; there was much laughing and giggling, which indicates that a good time was had by all; and we made it through the first two acts.  I was especially pleased that no one sounded completely “clueless” as they read their parts.  Everyone sounded as if they had at least done a cursory read-through on their own, which shows me that they are taking this seriously.  Their commitment to this project just makes me so proud, and I’m so excited to get to do this again!

After writing my last post, it occurred to me that I have a wealth of knowledge to share with people who are interested in staging Shakespeare…but 99% of it is on my bookshelves! I only learned as much as I did last year from the great books that I managed to find, usually from Amazon.com. So this post will simply be a list of the best books I found - ones that I would recommend you invest in for your drama department:

Teaching Shakespeare, Rex Gibson
**Shakespeare’s Words, David Crystal & Ben Crystal
Instant Shakespeare, Louis Fantasia
A Shakespearean Actor Prepares, Adrian Brine & Michael York
Teaching Shakespeare, Peter Reynolds
**The DK Essential Shakespeare Handbook, Leslie Dunton-Downer & Alan Riding
Secrets of Acting Shakespeare: The Original Approach, Patrick Tucker
Mastering Shakespeare: An Acting Class in Seven Scenes, Scott Kaiser
**The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amateur Theatricals, John Kenrick
Stage Costume: Step-By-Step, Mary T. Kidd
**Costume Construction, Katherine Evans-Strand
Discovering Shakespeare’s Meaning: An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare, Leah Scragg
Playing Shakespeare: An Actor’s Guide, John Barton
**Will Power: How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days, John Basil
Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice: The Actor’s Guide to Talking the Text, Kristin Linklater
**Play Director’s Survival Kit, James and Wanda Rodgers
**Clues to Acting Shakespeare, Wesley Van Tassel

If I could only choose certain ones from the list, I would definitely make sure I had the ones marked with **. These have been positively indispensable in figuring out how to direct Shakespeare, and a couple of them (especially those by Rodgers and Kenrick) are great resources for any drama department to have on hand.

I’ve created our rehearsal schedule for this summer - three rehearsals per week, beginning May 26, each rehearsal lasting three hours.  Performances are set for July 29-Aug 1.  So the schedule is more compact and fast-paced than last summer, but out of necessity because we’re performing a month and a half earlier than we did last year, and our rehearsals get underway the end of May, just like last year!

Last year I thought we could have just one read-through - a meeting where the cast sits down together and reads through the entire script, each person reading their own lines.  I suppose we could have done that - had I scheduled the read-through for about 5 hours!  In the books I read last summer to learn how to do this directing thing, I forgot one important point - I wasn’t working with a professional group of paid, experienced actors.  I had kids ranging in age from 11 to 18, most of whom had never been in a play before in their lives!  And many people just do not do cold reads very well.  It would have been great if everyone had read through the entire script prior to coming to the read-through, but that may have been expecting a bit much!

So this year I’ve scheduled “Read-Through part 1″ for Monday, April 21, and “Read-Through part 2″ for Monday, April 28.  All actors are required to be at both read-throughs, even if they don’t have lines in one of the halves of the play.  It is still critical that everyone in the cast understand the storyline, and so they all need to be there, following along in their scripts.

Another reason for requiring the entire cast to be at both read-throughs is simply for bonding…creating the team-spirit that I believe is so critical to a successful production.  I just saw our Highland Players do an amazing job this weekend on the Agatha Christie play, And Then There Were None (which another parent directed, God bless him!), and I know that a great deal of their success, as well as the success we enjoyed last summer, had to do with a sense of unity that is created by the cast members and director, working closely side by side for a length of time.  Knowing in advance that we’re a team, working toward a common goal, really helps everyone, even the youngest of actors, focus on the job at hand.

If you would like to see updates to our Highland Players webpage, I hope you’ll visit the link given below. I’m hoping to use it as a communication tool for my actors to be able to check for any schedule updates, but also as a PR tool for our drama program and our school. Give it a look and let me know what you think!

www.highlandplayersmontroseacademy.org

Agatha Christie, you might ask?  What on earth does Agatha Christie have to do with Shakespeare?  Nothing, really…and everything if your drama troupe is currently in production with And Then There Were None!

After the success of Much Ado last summer, a parent at our school asked if I would mind if he directed a play during the school year.  Would I mind???  Good heavens, I would have to be out of my mind to be upset by an offer like that!  I was especially excited for this parent in particular to make the offer - It just so happens that he minored in theater when he attended college, and has quite a bit of experience with plays!  How fortunate for our little school to have such a knowledgeable person to help keep our drama program going throughout the school year!

Prior to this parent’s offer, several people asked me if I would consider running a drama program during the school year.  Being the crazy person that I am, my first reaction was, “Oh my goodness…that would be AWESOME!”  Then I remembered that during the summer, I don’t have any classes to teach…my kids aren’t in school themselves, so I’m not helping them with homework…which is why the summer play worked for me.  As much as I would love to have been able to do drama 12 months out of the year, I knew in my heart that it just wasn’t feasible, unless I was willing to give up teaching some of my classes.  So having a parent volunteer to direct a play for three months was the perfect opportunity for our drama troupe to not only keep going nearly year-round, but also to hone some other acting skills.

I read up on how to direct and act Shakespeare…not how to do theater in general, so what I learned how to do last summer will be very helpful to students in their ability to learn and understand Shakespeare, as well as be true to the text when interpreting.  But what this other parent can give our students is a more well-rounded theatrical education which includes other playwrights, acting styles, methods…the list goes on!  Ultimately our students will have a better understanding of the theater arts, and even if none of them pursue drama in college, they will still have gained a great deal from the experience.  And by studing other playwrights, they will just end up being more well-read than they would have been otherwise.

Wait a minute…did I just say there are other playwrights besides Shakespeare!?!?

You’ll have to bear with me this week…My daughter just turned 11, and so my focus is, of course, on her!  But in thinking about this blog and my daughter, it occurred to me that I had a few things to say about children and Shakespeare.

Scott wrote a recent post - http://www.enotes.com/blogs/shakespeare/2008-03/kinder-bard-en/ - which discussed an article about exposing children to Shakespeare at the age of 4.  I agree completely with this premise.  Why not get kids interested in these wonderful stories while they’re still young enough to love fairy tales?  Why can’t they understand The Tempest if they can understand “Rapunzel”?  And language experts say that the younger a child, the easier it is for them to learn a new language.  Now, far be it from me to say that Shakespeare is another language!!  But I know it presents difficulties to some people when they are first trying to handle the Elizabethan poetry, and so if it works better for little kids whose brains still have all those wonderful firing synapses, then why not go for it?

I started the Shakespeare Festival at our school because I figured out that getting Shakespeare “off the page and onto the stage” is critical to students’ enjoyment and understanding of these plays.  People scoff when I say that I added Hamlet to our 7th grade reading list.  Of course it’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s nothing they can’t handle, particularly when we get up and starting reading aloud and acting out the story.  Last semester I worked with a group of students who ranged in age from 5 to 15 on a scene from The Tempest.  This exercise that I did came from a great book called Teaching Shakespeare, by Rex Gibson.  In it he suggested using Ariel’s story of the shipwreck and dividing lines amongst all of the kids, except Prospero, who is a single actor/reader.  So I took one of my older girls and gave her Prospero’s lines, and then divided Ariel’s lines among the rest of the kids.  The lines were divided, too, so they were manageable for younger kids.  Our littlest boy had a line with four words, and then we just worked on up to more and longer lines for the oldest kids.  They had so much fun with this - We even added sound effects so that there were ocean/surf crashing noises in the background while Ariel is telling his story, as well as thunder bolts at “Jove’s lighting, the precursors O’th’ dreadful thunderclaps”!  This was a great experience that led several of the kids to ask me, “When can we do more of this?”  In addition, they really wanted to know the entire story of The Tempest, which gave me the opportunity to do more teaching and sharing of Shakespeare.

Another great way to get younger kids involved in the plays is by having them be extras.  Our Much Ado last summer included the masked ball scene in Act II, complete with a choreographed 16th century Italian court dance!  It was SO neat to see these actors (yes, even the teenage boys!) get into this and want to learn these dance steps to bring even more dimension and life to our production.  Altogether we had 20 dancers - five groups of four dancers each - and the majority of them were extras - younger kids without lines in the play but who really wanted to be involved in the production in some capacity.  My daughter was one of these, as well as the Noble Lady who sings at Hero’s tomb in Act V (yes, I just had to mention my cute kid again!)!

So what exactly is the point to this post, other than to talk about my adorable birthday girl?  I want to encourage all teachers out there - elementary and secondary, public and private schools, and homeschoolers - to not be afraid to tackle the Bard and bring him to life with whatever group of kids you get to teach.  It never ceases to amaze me how much kids can do when they’re encouraged and loved through the process!

“How do you convince students that yes, Shakespeare did write in English?” This was just suggested as a possible topic for my blog by a wonderful lady I’ve had the pleasure to get to know through eNotes (thanks, Linda!). I think it’s a great idea to address this because inevitably, there are students who say, “I just can’t understand this Old English. Why couldn’t he write in modern English?”

I’m not mocking the kids (or adults) who struggle with this. I realize that the language is quite different than what we’re used to. Does that mean it’s impossible to understand? Absolutely not! A couple of things have helped me reach my students, and I’d love to share those ideas with you all.

1. Get them reading the text out loud. In my opinion, there is no substitute for this for helping students understand the plays (and the sonnets for that matter). This is why I started the afterschool reading group - I knew that having students read these plays aloud would help them understand the text better. In addition, the way our school is set up, I only meet with my students once a week for an hour, so I didn’t have a lot of class time to devote to reading the plays. And not only has it helped them understand Shakespeare, but I’ve had instances where students’ reading comprehension has improved in other subjects after participating with us.
2. Find good film versions to go along with your reading. I have had a great deal of success in using the Branagh Henry V, both the Branagh and Gibson versions of Hamlet, the Branagh Much Ado, and currently am using the Taylor/Burton Taming of the Shrew. Rather than read the entire play then watch the entire movie, however, I will have the kids read an act, then watch an act, and continue through the play like that. If you have a theater company in your area that occasionally does Shakespeare, get approval for a field trip to see a live play. I’ve had the good fortune to take students to see Much Ado and Midsummer at our local university and, believe me, there’s nothing quite like live theater to light a spark with these kids!
3. Throw the Yoda card. Huh? All I mean by this is that Yoda is a great example of the switching of word order from what we are used to - and yet, we can still understand him. Some examples of his lines that illustrate my point are, “Strong is Vader. Mind what you have learned. Save you it can,” and my personal favorite, “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.” Yes, his words are more simplistic and modern than Shakespeare’s, but reminding your students to put the word order back into what they recognize when appropriate will help them more fully understand the text.
4. Get a good Shakespearean dictionary for archaic words. I can’t recommend Shakespeare’s Words, by David Crystal and Ben Crystal, enough! There may be others out there that I haven’t run across, but I know from personal experience that this is just a great tool to have on hand. Not only can you look up words that are unfamiliar, but you can also check out information on all of his plays, his historical, Biblical, and classical mythological allusions…I could go on! A good exercise to do with your students is to have them work in groups with copies of this book, telling them they need to look up all of the unfamiliar words. Well, of course, they usually only look up the really archaic words and assume they know what all the rest mean. This is a good chance to show them that the meanings of words have evolved a great deal over the last 400 years, and so it is important to double check all of the words, just to make sure we’re not inserting a modern meaning into the word, the line, or the play.
5. Don’t use a “modern translation” of the play, if you can possibly help it. What?! Yes, I know I sound a bit crazy with this last statement, but remember, I’m just letting you know what’s worked for me and what I believe in. If you provide your students with a “modern translation” of Shakespeare, you are telling them a couple of things. First, you’re letting them know that they cannot possibly understand Shakespeare without having it “translated” for them. This could not be further from the truth! Second, you’re confirming in their minds that Shakespeare really didn’t write in English (or modern English, or whatever the dispute is) and that they need a translation. That is the whole point of this blog - Students really can understand Shakespeare; it can be amazingly relevant to them in these times; and his beautiful use of the language should be taught and appreciated, not watered down to make it easier for them.

   I hope this has helped some readers out there. My next post will discuss ideas for financing a drama program on a tight (or nonexistent) budget!