The Elm Shakespeare Company provides in-school residencies that last up to a semester. When so many schools have had to cut arts education from their curriculum, our residencies often provide the only exposure to theater education for many of these high-school students, and the value of what we do is best summed up in the words of our students:
"When I found out I was Caesar, I said, 'You're kidding.' Now, I'm at home every night rehearsing my lines. I finally get to find out what I can really do, I can reach out and grab the part." —Dante Freeman, High School in the Community Student
''It's something you actually have to put your mind to''—Shantell Darden, High School in the Community Student
These residencies expose the students to the world of the theatre, often concluding in a student production directed by a professional Elm Shakespeare director.
Watch the Eyewitness News 3 "Cool Schools" Report on our work with Common Ground High School
Read the New York Times article on our work with High School in the Community
These residencies fully realize the following components outlined in the Connecticut Framework K-12 Curricular Goals and Standards, as published by the CT State Board of Education:
• Students will create theatre through improvising, writing and refining scripts.
• Students will act by developing, communicating and sustaining characters.
• Students will design and produce the technical elements of theatre through artistic interpretation and execution.
• Students will direct by planning or interpreting works of theatre and by organizing and conducting rehearsals.
• Students will research, evaluate and apply cultural and historical information to make artistic choices.
• Students will make connections between theatre, other disciplines and daily life.
• Students will analyze, critique and construct meanings from works of theatre.
• Students will demonstrate an understanding of context by analyzing and comparing theatre in various cultures and historical periods.
Every Elm Shakespeare residency accomplishes the following outlined curricular guideposts:
• Students imagine and clearly describe characters, their relationships and their environments, use variations of movement and vocal pitch, tempo and tone for different characters, and roles (based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature and history) in dramatizations.
• Analyze dramatic text to discover, articulate and justify character motivation; invent character behaviors based on the observation of interactions, ethical choices and emotional responses of people, use acting skills (such as sensory recall, concentration, breath control, diction, body alignment, control of isolated body parts) to develop characterizations that reflect artistic choices; and in an ensemble, interact as the invented characters.
• Analyze the physical, emotional and social dimensions of characters found in dramatic texts from various genres and media, compare and demonstrate acting techniques and methods from a variety of periods and styles.
• Collaboratively plan and prepare improvisations and demonstrate various ways of staging dramatizations, demonstrate social, group and consensus skills by leading small groups in planning visual and aural elements and in rehearsing improvised and scripted scenes, develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices for scripts and production ideas and choose those that are most appropriate, and justify selection of text, interpretation and visual/ aural choices while effectively communicating directorial choices to a small ensemble for improvised or scripted scenes.
• Students identify and research cultural, historical and symbolic clues in dramatic texts, and evaluate the validity and practicality of the information to help make artistic choices for informal and formal productions.
• Students explain how social concepts such as cooperation, communication, collaboration, consensus, self-esteem, risk taking, sympathy and empathy apply in theatre and daily life
• Explain the knowledge, skills and discipline needed to pursue careers and vocational opportunities in theatre.
• Students compare similar themes in drama from various cultures and historical periods, discuss how theatre can reveal universal concepts; identify and compare the lives, works and influence of representative theatre artists in various cultures and historical periods; analyze the effect of their own cultural experiences on their dramatic work.
Elm Shakespeare has designed a playwrighting residency that, in addition to fulfilling many other requirements, also ensures, as a guideline suggests, “that students construct imaginative scripts and collaborate with actors to refine scripts so that story and meaning are conveyed to an audience”.
The curriculum benefits of the programs provided by the Elm Shakespeare Company stretch beyond the Arts guidelines and into the Language Arts division, as well. Click here to learn more.
For more information on any of our programs or how they can be tailored to meet your unique educational goals, contact Elm Shakespeare's Director of Education, Keely Knudsen at: keely.knudsen@elmshakespeare.org
