We are offering three workshops/lectures this year:

1. Page to Stage: Producing Shakespeare, Acting & Directing
2. Shakespeare’s Text: The First Folio and How it Got That Way
3. Stage Combat, A Primer: Hand-to-Hand Basics and Period Armed Combat

We can be brought in for one, or the series… or one repeatedly for different groups. They are not directly linked to any of our shows, but, rather, we ask what plays your students have read and tailor our presentation towards that play as best we can.

The first workshop, Page to Stage, is all about what actors do and what directors do in putting up a performance of a Shakespeare play. We look at a text (one that would work best with what your school reads) and we take the students through the process of the director creating a “concept” for the show and making decisions like the casting of the show and the cutting of the text. We then take the students through the process of the actors in creating their characters. And we go through how problem areas of the play are dealt with by the production team. This workshop came into being based on the Q & A sessions with students that we’ve had over the years.

The second workshop, Shakespeare’s Text, is more about the texts themselves — why and how they were written, blank verse, iambic pentameter, and acting. We’ll introduce the students to the theatrical conventions of Shakespeare’s time and then take them through the process of play production in the 16th and 17th centuries. This workshop is designed specifically to link directly the brilliant literature that we know today as Shakespeare’s plays to the pop-culture entertainment that audiences were seeing at the time of their writing. Again, we will focus on one text for most of our examples, so we ask what would be best for your school.

The third workshop, Stage Combat, is just that: learning the basic theories behind hand-to-hand and armed violence for the stage. We will throw in some fun history of combat and stage violence with some practical experience in hand-to-hand combat. We will also show the progression of combat from the pre-Romans through modern day and how to depict this weaponized combat in live theatre.

Each workshop is designed to work either as a one-class session or as a more detailed two-class session (some schools can make that work, others can’t).

The first two work well in a regular classroom, if it can fit your students, or we can use a theatre space or lecture hall or such. The combat one works best in either a theatre space or small gym.

These can be set for any day of the week, mid-September through mid-May.

Pricing is prorated based on the number of students. Call us at 773.743.9625 or e-mail at acrewofpatches@aol.com for more information.