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Teachers Activate Shakespeare

Do you remember your first introduction to Shakespeare? Was it active, engaging, and lively? Did it challenge your thinking skills? Encourage your creativity? Did it make you love the Bard?

The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival wants every student in Kentucky to answer those questions with a resounding YES!, so for the past six years, we have offered a special summer institute for teachers, FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: Teaching Shakespeare in the Classroom.

Many teachers, while interested in Shakespeare, are frustrated and even intimidated by the teaching of his works. Because Shakespeare is meant to be seen and heard — not merely read, FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE is a performance-based approach that integrates history, social customs, literature, language arts, visual arts, and the performing arts. These hands–on experiences eliminate the boredom or confusion that may arise when students approach Shakespeare only through reading.

Institute participants work with Master Teachers in lecture/demonstration and performance/workshops.
Topics include: period manners, movement and dance, Shakespeare's language, using choral techniques, and staging scenes using the participants as actors. Participants will also attend performances of the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival's summer productions.

Then, when the academic year begins, participants implement a Shakespeare study in their English, Language Arts, or Drama classrooms. Having selected a play, teachers guide their students in directing, costuming, and performing a scene. The project culminates in a Student Shakespearean Scene Festival held in the spring of each year. In this way, students meet Shakespeare in the most accessible way — through performance.

Kentucky teachers are particularly mindful of the expectations of KERA, and all teachers want to maximize their students' learning. FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE helps teachers develop the following performance-based skills in their students: making sense of what they read, see, and hear; speaking appropriately to an audience; communicating ideas visually and through movement; understanding, analyzing, and interpreting historical events; creating works of art, analyzing their own and others products and performances; appreciating art, music, and literature; solving problems and working collaboratively.

Over the past six years, teachers have given the program rave reviews.

“Working with other teachers helped me to bring new ideas into my classroom,” said Seneca High School teacher, Kay Twaryonas, who participated in the first summer institute.

“As a teacher, I felt like a sponge soaking up techniques for energizing the teaching of Shakespeare and I am ready to squeeze out every possibility for my students,” said Karen A. Miller of South Oldham Middle School. After three teachers from South Oldham Middle finished the summer institute, they held a school-wide Renaissance festival in which students took the stage.

PAST MASTER TEACHERS INCLUDE:

• Curt L. Tofteland, Producing Director, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival

• Dr. Margaret O'Brien, Director of Education, Corporation for Public Broadcasting

• Michael Kelly, Artistic Director, Shakespeare in Action, Toronto Ontario

• Elizabeth Ball, Artistic Director, Shakespeare Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia

• Christine Adaire, Professor of Voice, DePaul University and Shakespeare & Company

• Dr. Robert Moulton, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota Theatre Dept.

• James R. Tompkins, Theatre Professor, University of Louisville

• Kathleen Breen, Sacred Heart Academy, Louisville, KY, Folger Shakespeare Institute graduate

• Jerry Maguire, Center Grove High School, Indianapolis, IN, Folger Shakespeare Institute graduate

• Michael LoMonico, Farmingdale High School, Long Island, NY, Folger Shakespeare Institute graduate

• Skip Nicholson, South Pasadena High School, Folger Shakespeare Institute graduate.