The Shakespeare Workbook and Video: A Practical Course for Actors

Full Curriculum

 

Over the course of this year, as part of our Shakespeare Studio courses, we are working through a curriculum created by David and Rebecca Clark Carey in their book, The Shakespeare Workbook and Video: A Practical Course for Actors. We used selected parts of this curriculum for our 2016 class, "Preparing to Perform: Mining Shakespeare's Text," and this year we are attempting to get through the entire curriculum in full.

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We taught our own crash course in text clues in our "Fundamentals" class in Autumn 2019 Session 1, and began the Careys' curriculum in Autumn 2019 Session 2. In Spring 2020 Sessions 1 and 2 we are continuing in the curriculum, and we hope to get through more in the Summer and/or Autumn of 2020.

 

Chapter 1: Language and Action

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Exploration: Mark Antony (Julius Caesar)

 

Exercises: 

 

1. Having an Effect

Speeches in which the characters state openly what it is that they want from the person they are talking to. They know what they want and are trying to persuade the other person.

 

Joan Puzel

(Henry VI, Part One)

-Word order

-Adding adjectives

-Repetition

-Handling Evidence

 

Lady Percy

(Henry IV, Part One)

-Launching

-Show and Tell

-Accumulation

-Closing In

 

2. Negotiating Complications

Speeches in which the characters can’t say what they want directly. They might be trying to pin down what they want as they speak, or they might want two different, conflicting, things and need to negotiate between those two objectives. It's important to remember that the characters are making up their strategies as they go along. They start with a desire or impulse and then engage in a constant process of evaluating how close they are to achieving the desired effect and choosing what to say next.

 

Cassius

(Julius Caesar)

-Contrasts

-Verbs

-Saying the Unsayable

 

Portia

(The Merchant of Venice)

-Keep Away

-Landmines

-Back and Forth

 

3. Solving Problems

 

Proteus

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

-Love and Honor

-Good Angel/Bad Angel

-Object Lesson

 

Viola

(Twelfth Night)

-Putting Together the Pieces

-Question Time

-Statues

 

Hamlet

(Hamlet)

-Probing

-Good or Bad

-Pushing Through

-Stepping Stones

 

Follow-Up

 

Chapter 2: Language in Action: Imagery, Sound and Story

 

Exploration: Mark Antony

 

Exercises:

 

1. Picture Painting

 

Chorus

(Henry V)

-Physicalizing the image

-Specifying the image

-Showing the image

 

Titania

(A Midsummer Night's Dream)

-Visualizing

-Reporting

-Crossing the line

-Putting it all together

 

2. Ear Catching

 

Lady Macbeth

(Macbeth)

-Repeating Sounds

-Words in Action

 

Helena

(A Midsummer Night's Dream)

-Couplets and Triangles

-Tap the Balloon

 

3. Storytelling

 

Benvolio

(Romeo and Juliet)

-Proceed with caution

-See what I see

-Team spirit

 

Hotspur

(Henry IV, Part One)

-Modeling

-I said, he said

-Carry the bag

 

Follow-up

 

 

Chapter 3: Rhythm and Meter

​

Exploration: Mark Antony

 

Exercises:

 

1. Finding the Rhythm

 

Julia

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

-Expanding and contracting

-Reversals

-The Tipping Point

 

Richard

(Richard III)

-Expanding and contracting

-Six feet

-Tracking trochees

-Feminine endings

-The final word

 

Grumio

(The Taming of the Shrew)

-Triplets

 

2. Mastering the Rhythm 

These exercises look in more detail at the variations and irregularities in iambic pentameter and how they contribute to character development and argument, concentrating on examples from Shakespeare’s middle period, when he had gained mastery of the form. We also look further at prose rhythms.

 

Shylock

(The Merchant of Venice)

-Rockier Rhythms

-The Tipping Point

-Tapping

 

Portia and Lucius

(Julius Caesar)

-Sharing lines

 

Falstaff

(Henry IV, Part One)

-Drum kit

-Parallels

 

3. Breaking the Rhythm

“Once an artist has learned his trade and gained mastery of his chosen medium, he is likely to experiment with new ways of doing things. Shakespeare was certainly this kind of artist, and in his later plays he experimented not only with dramatic forms but also with the medium of iambic pentameter, as he made greater use of rhythmic variations to represent the variety and intensity of human communication (159).”

 

Edmund

(King Lear)

-Syllables and action

-Long and short

-In and out of step

 

Hermione

(The Winter's Tale)

-Possibilities

-Exploring enjambment

 

Antony and Cleopatra

(Antony and Cleopatra)

-Fine tuning

-Putting it all together

 

Follow-up

 

Chapter 4: Rhetoric and Style

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Exploration: Mark Antony

 

Exercises:

 

1. Recognizing Rhetoric

 

Speed

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

-Listing

-Specifying

-Antithesis

 

Queen Margaret

(Henry VI, Part Two)

-Identifying rhetoric

-Exploring rhetoric

-Landing the point

-Comedy and Style

 

Touchstone and Audrey

(As You Like It)

-Trump cards

-Contrasting cards

-Closing the gap

-Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

 

Phoebe and Silvius 

(As You Like It)

-Don’t go

-Get out of my way

-Let’s get literal

-Complicated Characters

 

Desdemona and Emilia

(Othello)

-Verse and prose

-Diagrams

-Language play

-Rhetorical strategies

 

Edmund and Gloucester

(King Lear)

-Identifying rhetoric

-Anticlimax

 

Follow-up

 

Chapter 5: Preparation for Performance

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Exercises

-Space

-Sound the Space

-Follow-Through

-Launch

-Muscularity and definition

-Orientation

-Circumstances

-Shoes

-Furniture

-Accent and character