60 young budding actors met during the Easter
holidays full of expectation and nerves at the prospect of putting on four
abridged Shakespeare plays in just four short days. The students had come from
all over the UK and abroad to take part in a Theatresaurus workshop, designed
to take a fresh look at the whole experience that can come from really ‘living’
a play. The experience was intense, focused and loads of fun.
The post performance response from both parents
and children was effusive. The parent of 7 year old Alexei who performed in
Macbeth said 'we were extremely impressed by the performance on Friday and the
approach ….of not dumbing down the text, even for the youngest children. You
have enhanced his culture''.
As the founder of Theatresaurus I have a long held
belief that Shakespeare has to be active especially for those coming to it for
the first time. It makes it come alive in kids’ minds and brings out
their passion and enthusiasm for the writing.
I started running these four day Shakespeare
workshops after my son sent me a text from school one lunchtime saying how
boring Shakespeare was. I was running workshop sessions for the
Shakespeare Schools Festival when I received the text. As you can imagine
I was furious and hugely disappointed as my children have been bought up on a
diet of Shakespeare and having seen many productions had up until then had a
positive experience of his plays. For a lesson to have had this effect
was pretty devastating. It made me determined to get to as many students
as possible and encourage a love and understanding of the Bard and indeed other
text'.
The secret of the magic of Theatresaurus is the practical
nature of the work. We use improvisation, techniques and relevant themed
games to help develop an understanding
and enjoyment of the text so that the students have a visual picture of the
story they are telling which give them confidence. We do not shy away from the
text but embrace it. You do not need to understand every word of Shakespeare
in order to enjoy him, it is the essence of his work we are trying to
teach. The text seems to creep up on the
students and before they know it they are reciting huge chunks with confidence
and often piercing clarity. All the
directors come from a professional theatre background and bring a strong sense
of this to their work. The aim of
Theatreasuarus is to roll these workshops out around the country, using our own
particular style and active approach to the text to ignite a passion in kids
that they can’t get simply from reading.
We work in all areas of theatre, not just
Shakespeare. Our next course is the 10 day Speech and Drama workshop in the
summer that will run at Millfield School. We also run a weekly drama club
.
All details can be found on our website
www.theatresaurus.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment