Download or read book What Country Friends Is This Directing Shakespeare with Young Performers written by Max Hafler and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly practical, comprehensive guide to exploring Shakespeare with young people - ideal for directors, youth theatre leaders, workshop facilitators and teachers. Experienced teacher, actor and director Max Hafler tackles the myths that Shakespeare's work is like a foreign country, not for the faint-hearted, or only for a privileged few. In this book, he shows how you can embrace the challenges of doing Shakespeare with young people, and make the plays accessible and exciting for all. Beginning with a series of workshops that introduce the skills and principles of voice and acting, he sets out, step by step, how to use devising, develop short scenes, explore soliloquies, and unlock the themes, characters, stories and language of the plays. The holistic approach includes dozens of exercises - many inspired by Michael Chekhov's innovative technique - which will help young actors explore their voice, imagination and body, and lead to performances that are richer, focused and more fulfilling. There is also useful advice on preparing for a production, editing and transposing the text, rehearsing scenes, and fostering an ensemble. Above all, this book will equip you to engage and empower young people, and to help them discover for themselves the joy of working with Shakespeare. Praise for Max Hafler's Teaching Voice: Workshops for Young Performers: 'A useful book for teachers, youth theatre leaders, facilitators and indeed anyone who works with young people... plenty of exercises, warm-ups and advice about how to use the techniques in the rehearsal room' The Stage 'Through years of experience, Hafler has developed a great understanding of what can work with teenagers and shares it generously with those who work in the field' Word Matters (Journal of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama) 'It is clear that the original, imaginative and fun exercises that are found within this book have been thoughtfully put together by someone who has a wealth of experience in his field and that each session has been successfully tried and tested with his own students' Drama Magazine 'A must-own... full of exercises and advice to explore' Teaching Drama

Download or read book The Book of Will written by Lauren Gunderson and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without William Shakespeare, we wouldn’t have literary masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.

Download or read book Teaching Voice written by Max Hafler and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[Teaching Voice] offers a step-by-step course of workshops and themed sessions, along with a series of exercises and vocal warm-ups--from the tried-and-tested to the truly innovative. ... An invaluable resource for anyone involved in vocal training for young people, whether your're looking for a strutured programme of workshops, or simply for some fresh ideas to inspire your students"--Back cover.

Download or read book Weyward Macbeth written by S. Newstok and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weyward Macbeth, a volume of entirely new essays, provides innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the various ways Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' has been adapted and appropriated within the context of American racial constructions. Comprehensive in its scope, this collection addresses the enduringly fraught history of 'Macbeth' in the United States, from its appearance as the first Shakespearean play documented in the American colonies to a proposed Hollywood film version with a black diasporic cast. Over two dozen contributions explore 'Macbeth's' haunting presence in American drama, poetry, film, music, history, politics, acting, and directing — all through the intersections of race and performance.

Download or read book Shakespeare on Stage written by Julian Curry and published by Nick Hern Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen leading actors take us behind the scenes, each recreating in detail a memorable performance in one of Shakespeare's major roles. * Brian Cox on Titus Andronicus in Deborah Warner's visceral RSC production * Judi Dench on being directed by Franco Zeffirelli as a twenty-three-year-old Juliet * Ralph Fiennes on Shakespeare's least sympathetic hero Coriolanus * Rebecca Hall on Rosalind in As You Like It, directed by her father, Sir Peter * Derek Jacobi on his hilariously poker-backed Malvolio for Michael Grandage * Jude Law on his Hamlet, a palpable hit in the West End and on Broadway * Adrian Lester on a modern-dress Henry V at the National, during the invasion of Iraq * Ian McKellen on his Macbeth, opposite Judi Dench in Trevor Nunn's RSC production * Helen Mirren on a role she was born for, and has played three times: Cleopatra * Tim Pigott-Smith on Leontes in Peter Hall's Restoration Winter's Tale at the National * Kevin Spacey on his high-tech, modern-dress Richard II * Patrick Stewart on Prospero in Rupert Goold's arctic Tempest for the RSC * Penelope Wilton on Isabella in Jonathan Miller's 'chamber' Measure for Measure The actors discuss their characters, working through the play scene by scene, with refreshing candour and in forensic detail. The result is a masterclass on playing each role, invaluable for other actors and directors, as well as students of Shakespeare - and fascinating for audiences of the plays. Together, the interviews give one of the most comprehensive pictures yet of these characters in performance, and of the choices that these great actors have made in bringing them thrillingly to life. 'These passages of times remembered contribute vividly to the sense of a teemingly creative period when Shakespeare seemed to have been rediscovered.' Trevor Nunn, from his Foreword

Download or read book Players of Shakespeare 2 written by Russell Jackson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-10-12 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second volume of essays by actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Fourteen actors describe the Shakespearean roles they played in productions between 1982 and 1987. The contributors are Roger Allam, Frances Barber, Kenneth Branagh, Niamh Cusack, Ben Kingsley, Ian McDiarmid, Daniel Massey, Edward Petherbridge, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Antony Sher, Juliet Stevenson, David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker. Each gives a unique insight into the preparation and performance of a major Shakespearean role and how a character is created through responding to Shakespeare's text, within the context of a particular director's conception and the environment established by the designer. A brief biographical note is provided for each of the contributors and an introduction places the essays in the context of the Stratford and London stages, and of the music and design for the particular productions.

Download or read book The Whip written by Juliet Gilkes Romero and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Alfred Fagon Award. As the 19th Century dawns in London, politicians of all parties gather to abolish the slave trade once and for all. But the price of freedom turns out to be a multi-billion pound bailout for slave owners rather than those enslaved. As morality and cunning compete amongst men thirsty for power, two women navigate their way to the true seat of political influence, challenging members of parliament who dare deny them their say. In this provocative new play by Juliet Gilkes Romero, the personal collides with the political to ask, what is the right thing to do and how much must it cost?

Download or read book Playing Shakespeare written by John Barton and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Playing Shakespeare is the premier guide to understanding and appreciating the mastery of the world’s greatest playwright. Together with Royal Shakespeare Company actors–among them Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, and David Suchet–John Barton demonstrates how to adapt Elizabethan theater for the modern stage. The director begins by explicating Shakespeare’s verse and prose, speeches and soliloquies, and naturalistic and heightened language to discover the essence of his characters. In the second section, Barton and the actors explore nuance in Shakespearean theater, from evoking irony and ambiguity and striking the delicate balance of passion and profound intellectual thought, to finding new approaches to playing Shakespeare’s most controversial creation, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice. A practical and essential guide, Playing Shakespeare will stand for years as the authoritative favorite among actors, scholars, teachers, and students.

Download or read book Freeing Shakespeare s Voice written by Kristin Linklater and published by Theatre Communications Group. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionate exploration of the process of comprehending and speaking the words of William Shakespeare. Detailing exercises and analyzing characters' speech and rhythms, Linklater provides the tools to increase understanding and make Shakespeare's words one's own.

Download or read book The Actor s and Intelligent Reader s Guide to the Language of Shakespeare written by Richard DiPrima and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author s Note: This book is intended to help the actor or intelligent reader master the forms of Shakespeare s language. Anyone who acts Shakespeare s plays well must have a confident feel for the language of his plays. Anyone who reads his plays well must be a Shakespearean actor deep inside his or her mind! It has been my honor, as founder and director of The Young Shakespeare Players, to direct thousands of actors in full-length Shakespeare roles. My experience with these players -- from age 7 to 80, with most between 13 and 18 -- has helped tell me what the serious Shakespeare actor or reader must grasp. Our young actors always quickly understood that they needed to start to make Shakespeare s language their own. They always especially emphasized the resonance of his words, and their precise and evocative beauty. I find inadequacies in published works on understanding and using Shakespeare s language. Some are overly simplified, or even wrong-headed. Some are excellent, but simply do not go far enough. They tend, for example, to take an element of Shakespeare s writing craft (say, his use of verse rhythm or antitheses), explain its meaning briefly, give a few examples, and move quickly on. Often, the actor/reader leaves with too little experience to apply this knowledge the next time the element crops up. We need, instead, a way for the serious actor or reader to immerse in the key elements of Shakespeare s text, so that each becomes familiar and instantly recognizable. And so, we developed the RISARA model, which is the basis of this book. The RISARA model RISARA is an acronym for six major ways in which Shakespeare shaped and varied the language of his plays: R - Rhythm and stress. Shakespeare wrote most of the lines in his plays in verse -- language formed into expected rhythm patterns and line lengths. Then he regularly broke the rules of his own verse form. The R in RISARA leads the actor/reader to ask: Does the rhythm vary from the regular pattern or normal line length? If so, why? Can this variation help us more clearly understand the meaning? I - Imagery. Shakespeare's movie cameras and special effects were he words, spoken by the actors; and his screens were the ears and minds of the audience. What pictures do Shakespeare s words evoke? How does the imagery help define the emotions and characterizations in his plays? S - Sound. In Shakespeare s time, language was more important for how it sounded than for how it looked on a page. Does the sound of Shakespeare s words add to the feeling of the passage being read? How does the actor/reader use it to enhance the meaning? A - Antitheses. Shakespeare used no figure of speech to greater effect than antithesis -- the formal contrast set up to sharpen and guide the thinking of character and audience alike. In any passage, does Shakespeare emphasize his meaning by comparing antithetical words or ideas? Do such comparisons need special emphasis to bring out the meaning? R - Repetition. Schoolchildren in Shakespeare s time were thoroughly trained in rhetoric and formal figures of repetition. Shakespeare often used these to strengthen a passage by repeating certain sounds, or words, or whole phrases. We need to ask: How did he use repetition in this passage? How does the repetition enhance the mood or character or image? A - Architecture. Shakespeare built a kind of architecture into his words in other ways -- from changes of direction in speeches, to phrasing of individual verse lines, to shifts between prose and verse, and much more. How do these architectural elements add to the meaning or feelings of the scene, or speech, or passage? What can the actor/reader do to emphasize these architectural features?"

Download or read book What Is Shakespeare written by Ted van Griethuysen and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of this book written by the renowned American actor, Ted van Griethuysen, is a fundamental idea: Shakespeare is only what he says and how he says it. How he says it, of course, is poetry, and what poetry is, why we need it, is central to an actor’s study of Shakespeare. An actor must do two things at once (1) honor the poetry, and (2) sound like a human being talking. At the same time. It is for directors and theatre designers as well and for anyone, anywhere, who wants to know Shakespeare and his place in knowing the world and ourselves. What Is Shakespeare? is the accumulation of a remarkable life’s work and offers this standing invitation: read on.

Download or read book The Two Gentlemen of Verona written by William Shakespeare and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the word “gentlemen” suggests that its heroes are adults, The Two Gentlemen of Verona is more intelligible if we think of them as boys, leaving home for the first time. One has a crush on a girl, Julia, though he hasn’t yet told her. Sent to court to learn to be “perfect gentlemen,” Valentine and Proteus are derailed by their attraction to Sylvia, the ruler’s daughter. Valentine’s mental denseness does not deter Sylvia from returning his love, but he is caught, and banished, when he tries to elope with her. Proteus’ desire for Sylvia wipes out his former love, leading him into despicable acts that win scorn from Sylvia and wound Julia, who has pursued him disguised as a boy. When Sylvia follows Valentine into banishment, Proteus follows Sylvia, and Julia follows Proteus, the stage is set for a disturbing ending. But the stage is also set for the “gentlemen” to take small steps toward maturity. The authoritative edition of The Two Gentlemen of Verona from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference -Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Jeffrey Masten The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Download or read book Evoking and Forgetting Shakespeare written by Peter Brook and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brook's meditation on performing Shakespeare today.

Download or read book Shakespeare Music and Performance written by Bill Barclay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-13 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music has been an essential constituent of Shakespeare's plays from the sixteenth century to the present day, yet its significance has often been overlooked or underplayed in the history of Shakespearean performance. Providing a long chronological sweep, this collection of essays traces the different uses of music in the theatre and in film from the days of the first Globe and Blackfriars to contemporary, global productions. With a unique concentration on the performance aspects of the subject, the volume offers a wide range of voices, from scholars to contemporary practitioners (including an interview with the critically acclaimed composer Stephen Warbeck), and thus provides a rich exploration of this fascinating history from diverse perspectives.

Download or read book I Am Shakespeare written by Mark Rylance and published by NHB Modern Plays. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling exploration in dramatic form of the Shakespeare authorship question, from one of the most acclaimed contemporary actors.

Download or read book Complete Works of William Shakespeare abridged revised again written by Adam Long and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2023-09-15 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally performed by its creators, this 1987 Edinburgh Fringe hit remains the second longest-running West End comedy in history and has been translated into over thirty languages. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is not so much a play as it is a vaudeville show in which three charismatic, wildly ambitious actors attempt to present all thirty-seven of Shakespeare's plays in a single performance. They have a rudimentary concept of the stories and have imperfectly memorized a smattering of famous lines. Backstage there's a meager assortment of costumes and props. Thus armed, the three brazenly launch into their task with an earnest focus and breakneck enthusiasm.

Download or read book A Midsummer night s Dream written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1734 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Sylvan Theatre, Washington Monument grounds, The Community Center and Playgrounds Department and the Office of National Capital Parks present the ninth summer festival program of the 1941 season, the Washington Players in William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," produced by Bess Davis Schreiner, directed by Denis E. Connell, the music by Mendelssohn is played by the Washington Civic Orchestra conducted by Jean Manganaro, the setting and lights Harold Snyder, costumes Mary Davis.