Spotlight on a New Generation: 2007-2008 Season

California Shakespeare Theater

King Lear

This year, California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes)—with help from their Shakespeare for a New Generation funding—worked to expand their school-based programming with extended residencies, further engage students with an activity called the 32-Second King Lear, and incorporate a new professional development workshop for teachers at their annual Educator's Night.

Extended Residencies

Extending their residencies during the 2007-2008 season allowed Cal Shakes to provide students with a more extensive opportunity to explore the play through eight arts-based lessons led by Cal Shakes Teaching Artists. One of the new partnerships for the extended residencies was with Claremont Middle School in Oakland, CA. Teaching Artist Trish Tillman worked with three classes of seventh graders by pulling the highlight scenes from the play and casting the students in various roles. She helped them paraphrase the language and coached them through the action, giving each student a deeper understanding of and connection to the play. Every student had a place; the bookworms could get into the meaning of the dialogue, the class clown had an outlet to act out as a goofy character, and, most importantly, everyone was given a voice—both "on stage" and in the discussions that followed. The residency experience promoted teamwork among students, built confidence for public speaking, and made Shakespeare fun. Through the process, it became even clearer what an important role this program was playing in the schools.

32-Second King Lear

In 2006, Cal Shakes had observed the restlessness of students and subsequent anxiety of chaperones and teachers as groups waited to enter the theater. Transportation logistics can leave school groups waiting 15 minutes to an hour to wait before sitting down. Cal Shakes brainstormed ways to engage groups in a more meaningful experience prior to the performance; their answer was to have teaching artists lead students in a competitive and super-truncated version of King Lear. Groups were divided into teams, and challenged one another to a race, taking on characters and reciting lines from the play. Being a tragedy, the play's several characters all had the stage direction "he dies," which the teaching artists emphasized for the kids to fall dramatically to their death. Teachers expressed that this activitiy allowed students to explore the plot and characters one more time, got them excited and engaged in the narrative, and introduced or reinforced specific lines from the play.

Professional Development for Teachers

As part of their annual Educator's Night, Cal Shakes added a new hands-on learning workshop for teachers called Cracking Open Shakespeare. The training focued on how teachers can incorporate easy-to-replicate arts methodology into their Shakespeare instruction, and was supplemented with lessons from Cal Shakes' Student Discovery curriculum guide. The hands-on nature of the workshop put teachers on their feet and allowed them to explore the techniques of the lessons first hand. Going beyond Shakespeare, this workshop even offered up ways that teachers might integrate arts strategies into other lesson plans. Overall, the training was a great success, equipping teachers with valuable take-home resources for bringing Shakespeare to life in the classroom.

PHOTO GALLERY
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Photos by Jay Yamada, courtesy of California Shakespeare Theater.