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A Workshop from Shakespeare!© Marilyn Cameron
As your drama group grows and develops, you may look to various sources to provide ideas to enrich both the intellectual and emotional experience such as themes, stories, ideas and thoughts.
One of the reasons Shakespeare's plays are still popular is because they are greatly written around the human emotions, which is, of course, why we can still relate to them. Many Community drama groups avoid Shakespeare and the other great works of such playwrights feeling the material beyond their ability or scope. But, there is no better way to introduce your drama members to the work of the playwrights than to provide them with the opportunity to explore them within the workshop environment. A good working method is to take a section from the story of a play. The story, not the script. A section that contains some of the emotions you wish to explore and discuss. For example, let's take a look at a section from the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream:- Hermia's father, according to law, has ordered her to marry Demetrius. she is breaking the law by refusing because she loves someone else, Lysander. Angred by her disobedience, her father goes to the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and demands justice. When she is brought before him, Theseus gives Hermia four days to consider her decision afterwhich, if she still refuses to marry her father's choice for her, Demetrius, she will be put to death. In her defence, Hermia pleads that Demetrius had formerly professed love for her best friend, Helena, and that Helena still loved Demetrius madly. After the hearing, Hermia immediately tells Lysander of her predicament and he suggests that they should meet in the woods later and run away together to his Aunt's house in Athens, where he would marry her and the law was different. Hermia agrees and tells her best friend Helena about the plan. Helena, jealous because she has lost Demetrius' heart to Hermia, betrays the secret to Demetrius only to have the pleasure of following her faithless lover into the woods, his heartbreak on finding Hermia and Lysander together being the main concern of her bitterly hurt heart. From the above little extract, with its content of love, fear, honourable intention, jealousy and treachery, and much more, a Drama Worker/Director and their drama group can certainly find lots to discuss, and create drama workshops from. They might even want to carry on exploring the rest of the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article A Workshop from Shakespeare! in Drama Workshops is owned by Marilyn Cameron. Permission to republish A Workshop from Shakespeare! in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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