Embodied Shakespeare

The team at New Place Players is committed to bringing Shakespeare to life in educational settings, through our Embodied Shakespeare program. Our teaching artists engage students, particularly from marginalized or underrepresented segments of society, enabling them to embrace Shakespeare's language and characters through voice, movement, music, and creative exploration. By embodying the essence of Shakespeare, we infuse classrooms and lives with joy and vitality.

Our workshops are tailored to a variety of students:

Middle & High School students who are being exposed to the Bard’s literature
College students in theatre, music and arts administration programs
Teacher training for actors & musicians

Types of Workshops

Shakespeare-specific Workshops

Dreamwork Workshops

Music Master Classes

Shakespeare-specific Workshops

Our aim with these workshops is to bring Shakespeare alive into the mind & body consciousness of each student, hence why we call our workshops in general Embodied Shakespeare.

We start with theatre games and exercises so that the students are immediately engaged and active. Then, we take a look at a specific scene from a play and study the background and meaning of the story in question. The students then get to discover the poetical devices used, especially within the iambic pentameter, which brings the story to life, and how it helps to understand the character’s intentions. We may use physical exercises again to understand what it means for an actor to carry out a full thought.

A typical session may consist of the following:
10-15 minutes of warm up and games
Text discovery through the study of iambic pentameter and the meaning of the text.
Character and script analysis.
The students then read aloud, on their feet and play out a particular scene.
Q & A session and discussion

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Dream Work

Dreamwork offers access to the innate wisdom and creative potential of the unconscious supporting artists of all disciplines to make the invisible visible and create truthful work.

In our practice, we dive deep into the dream imagery and work with breath, voice, gesture, painting and writing to express the unconscious material, embody the figures the dream brought forth and explore hidden parts of ourselves in order to move towards a richer, more integrated experience of our artistry.

Music Master Classes

A Musical Exploration of Shakespeare

Integrating Improvisation, Technology & Text

With Anna Bikales and Flavio Gaete

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In the fall of 2024, New Place Players was invited to do a residency at the University of Akron along with partner company Rubber City Theatre.

Music Director Flavio Gaete (viola, piano, synthesizers) and Principal Musician Anna Bikales (harp) gave a master class about their work in The Masque of Night, improvising live chamber music to go along with Shakespeare’s text, performed by actors Clara Tristan (Juliet) and Maximilian Macdonald (Romeo).

Get in touch with us if you’re interested in bringing us to your class room (high school and college level).

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