We just completed our first Shakespeare performance this past spring. My advanced theater students, who are eighth and seventh graders, recently performed a series of scenes together. We titled the evening, Shakespeare Then & Now.
Ultimately, act one before intermission was all of the original scenes in the original language with period costuming.
Side note here: Our program was set to perform this concept back in the spring of 2020 when the world went into lockdown and never got to perform it. Originally we didn't have the ability to do all the period costumes and we're going to have the performers wear all black like we would for competition.
After intermission, the students performed modern original interpretations of their Shakespeare scenes. They wrote modern adaptations, inspired by the original. They were not simple translations into modern-day English. They were inspired in some way by a piece of the storyline in the original.
We had great success with this. The students learned Shakespeare in a manageable chunk. I was also able to assign the partner scenes based on each pair's capabilities. We had an odd number of students and so we had one monologue too.
If I do this again, I definitely would do a mix of monologue, partner, and ensemble scenes instead of just partner scenes. The issue was simply the length of the entire performance. However, you were students can do it if you believe in them. Best of luck with your Shakespeare, no matter which play you choose to do.
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Amy MacCord
Musical Theatre Teacher
Westwood Middle School
FL
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