Director

Rehearsal Diary

Set design

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click here for lesson plans:
drama
dance

Please read about the project before starting the lesson plans.

BEFORE 'DREAMING THE DREAM'

In Autumn 1998, Sheffield Theatres Education Department worked with four Sheffield primary schools on a project around Michael Grandage’s production of As You Like It. The aims of the project were to introduce Year 5 and 6 children to Shakespeare in an accessible and enjoyable way through games, movement, drama and music, and for children in traditionally non theatre going areas to perform their own work and to experience professional live theatre.

The four schools came together at the end of the project to perform on the Crucible stage and to learn about lighting, sound, acting and directing from the creative and production team, before watching the matinee performance.

The project was felt to be highly successful by all involved, and a very similar format will be adopted for the current project around A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

'DREAMING THE DREAM' - the 2003 project
During September and October 2003, we will be working with Year 6 children in three primary schools; Arbourthorne, Firs Hill and Tinsley. The project will give an overview of plot, character and themes and will concentrate on the language of specific speeches. Choreographer Dan O’Neill will work with all classes for a full day to introduce a movement element.

Details of the elements of the project can be found below. If you have tried other activities or variations on those included which you found particularly successful please feel free to share them by emailing them to us at education@sheffieldtheatres.co.uk. We will post them on the website.

The ABOUT THE PLAY section of the website also includes a brief synopsis of the play and introduction to the themes and characters. This will be useful for teachers who are unfamiliar with the play or can be used in the classroom by children, simply to find out more about the play or as a literacy text, for comprehension activities, for them to set quizzes and so on.

Thinking about introducing the project for a second time, we thought about various approaches. For example, should we concentrate on universal themes such as parent / child conflict and work from the children’s experience before introducing the text itself? Could we work in a more abstract way by looking at the rhythms of different speeches through movement? Possibly each school could take one of the three worlds (court, fairies and mechanicals) and represent that through dance, language and sound.

In the limited time available, we eventually came back to the previous model. We wanted children to know the plot and to understand something about the characters and the themes but also felt it imperative to look closely at the language of particular speeches and to focus on the poetry and music of the sounds of the language. Our aims were to reassure children that they do not need to understand every word spoken throughout the play and that there are various ways in which to appreciate the language. Previous experience showed that children were more willing than adults to listen to the rhythm and sounds of the words and to find them amusing, frightening, musical and so on without being frightened by preconceptions of something highbrow called “Shakespeare”.

The overall idea of change or transformation within the play also seemed to dominate our discussions, as did the idea of the A/B/A structure of the play as it moved from court to wood to court. Attempting to find themes that lent themselves to movement and also allowed children some degree of identification to ensure ownership of their work, we took three areas, one for each school to work on:

• Love – mature and doting love “blind” idolatry. (Group or school 1)

• Chaos and order. (Group or school 2)

• Dreaming and waking. (Group or school 3)

To deliver the workshops in your school, choose one of the above strands then follow instructions for either group 1, 2 or 3.

Before the project/working on the lesson plans:
Class teachers were asked to introduce the play before our first visit so that children were aware of the plot and the characters. Teachers used various methods including:

• The Animated Tales. (Robert Saakiants for the BBC)

• Guided readers – Longman’s “Magical Scenes From A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a selection of speeches with “useful words”, with the story in between. (See also under websites)

• Abridged versions of the story such as updated versions of Lambs’ Tales From Shakespeare.

• Videos of the play such as the 1988 BBC version (produced by Jonathan Miller and directed by Elijah Moshinsky) or Michael Hoffman’s 1998 version. These can be used in full or for certain speeches or scenes.

Lesson plans:

drama
dance

Drama

Day 1 – full day workshop.

Aim: The morning of the first day is intended to be a general introduction to the play, building on work already done in the classroom to add any extra information needed and to work on the foundations for work to follow. Children will also learn something about Shakespeare’s language and about ways of delivering lines.

Content: The session is composed largely of warm up games or activities based on theme and character. As each game is played, their relevance to the play is discussed. This allows information to be given alongside an active element.
Various language activities, including a close look at a section of text, will give us a bank of ideas to incorporate into the movement work.

Activity 1 – Initial discussion. (All groups)
The class are asked about their perceptions of Shakespeare, both before meeting A Midsummer Night’s Dream and after their introductory studies in the classroom. This discussion should open up any areas of interest to develop during the day and hopefully allay any fears expressed.

Activity 2 - Character warm up. (Groups 1 and 3)
This opening game reintroduces characters’ names, their pronunciation and their part in the play.

The class are asked to walk around the space, making sure they do not touch anyone else. They are then given a series of commands: Go / Stop / Turn a quarter turn to the left / Turn a quarter turn to the right.

Next they are told that when they hear a characters’ name they will respond with an action: Hermia = go / Helena = stop / Lysander = turn left / Demetrius = turn right. Other characters and commands can be added e.g. Puck = turn in a full circle. A brief discussion asks about characters and their commands – Helena is the only character to remain unchanged; Demetrius and Lysander both turn in their affections. (See character section for more character details)

Alternative (group 2) or additional character warm up (groups 1 and 3).
The class stand in a circle. One person (A) walks towards another (B) who then has to say the name of another class member (C) and walk towards them before person A gets to them. Person A walks into the space of person B as they walk towards person C. Now each person is given the name of one of the characters in the play, written on a card to hold in front of them. Instead of using their own names, their character name is called. There are 22 named characters in the play. Others can be given Attendant fairies, Lords etc. Click here for names.

The game can also be played with the children holding up letters so that they spell out names of characters, i.e. the person who starts announces they will begin with Helena, when that name is completed another is chosen. If the game is restricted to the names of the lovers, the letters needed are A, D, E, H, I, L, M, N, R, S, T. U. Y. Double or triple up on common letters such as A, E, R, D, S until each person has a letter. Click here for letters.

Activity 3 – Theme warm up (change or transformation) activity. (Group 3)
The class is divided into groups of 3, with one person as the sculptor and the other two as the “clay”. Each group is given a word from the following selection: disorder / court / dreaming / magic / infatuation. The sculptor is asked to model their “clay” to represent that word using their bodies and facial expressions.
A selection of groups show their sculptures to the rest of the class, who are asked to suggest the word they were given. Volunteers are then asked to come and resculpt to represent order / wood / waking / reason / mature love. The two images are looked at together.

A discussion takes place on the theme of change or transformation within the play (see themes for more information).

Activity 4
A selection of warm up games are introduced, depending on which aspect of change or transformation the class are looking at.

Love: (Group 1)
The game introduces the aspect of “blind” or doting love and connects the setting of the wood. (See themes for more information) It allows concentration and listening skills to develop and needs the group to look out for other people.

Two people are blindfolded; one is the hunter and the other the hunted. The rest of the group spread themselves out as trees in a wood. The blindfolded children move around the space, with the hunter trying to touch the hunted. The remainder of the class attempt to stop them bumping into people or objects by whispering “tree” if they come near and by moving themselves slightly to protect the blindfolded children from walls or objects in the room.

Order / disorder: (Group 2)
(Use alternative character warm up as this is a similar format to activity 1.)
The game gives a series of commands to be followed as they are, then turns them upside down thus introduces a discussion on order and disorder. The extension links this to the court and the wood. (See themes for more information)
Children are asked to walk around on the signal “Go”, making sure they used all the hall and do not bump into anyone else. On the signal “Stop” they should immediately stop. After a few times, the signal “Clap” and “Jump” are added - each should be a single clap or jump.
When the class are used to the signals, change them around to mean the opposite i.e. go = stop / clap = jump etc. If the class are comfortable with this, add another level which links court to order and wood to disorder. The command “Go Court” then means go, “Go Wood” means stop!

Sleeping / waking: (Group 3)
The class are asked to lie on their backs in the hall as dead or sleeping bears. Four or five children are chosen as hunters. Without any physical contact, the hunters job is to make the bears move, laugh, talk etc. If they achieve this, the bear stands up and joins the hunters until one or two bears are left.
A discussion on dreams, waking and sleeping follows this game. (See themes for more information)

Activity 5 (All groups)
The language element of the project is now introduced. Working in groups of about 4, children are given a word per group, for example love, dreams, moon, disorder, wood, court, daytime, imagination. Words could be taken directly from speeches or groups could also pick their own word relating to the play (themes or characters).

Now in their groups they find a simple action for the word and they also find a synonym each, with one person keeping the original word. They may use a thesaurus, translate the word into another language or simply make up a word that they think represents their word by sound.

The class come back and stand in a circle. One at a time, they perform their action with their word and as it is performed the rest of the class follow. On the second time round, a steady rhythm should be built up.

Activity 6 – speech work. (All groups but follow strands below)
Words from the script are now introduced. This will give a point of reference and familiarity when the longer sections are introduced later on. Each should be briefly discussed for its meaning if necessary. It is a good idea to locate these lines in the speeches in appendix 2 in order to contextualise them for yourselves before this discussion. If the class find remembering all three lines difficult, split them into three groups and ask them to concentrate on one line each.

The lines used are:

Love: (Group1)

1. “Our nuptial hour draws on apace.”
2. “My gentle joy.”
3. “How I dote on thee.”

Disorder / order (Group 3)

1. “The seasons alter.”
2. “More strange than true.”
3. “The human mortals want their winter cheer.”

Sleeping / waking (Group 2)

1. “ Sleep with leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.”
2. “ It seems to me that yet we sleep we dream”
3. “ Why then, we are awake.”

As a class, each line is practised a few times, trying out different ways of saying them. Now working in pairs, children discuss and rehearse how the lines might be delivered and also how they might move and look when they are saying them.

Next, children stand in a space and mark their position in the hall (position 1). They then choose another spot (position 2), move to that spot and mark where it is, before finding position 3 and then moving back to position 1.

Now the class move from one position to the next, saying the sentences in order between each position and matching their vocal expression with ways of walking and facial expression. If children are remembering only one line, the whole class move from one position to another but only deliver their lines at a specified move (e.g. children delivering “Why then, we are awake” do so moving from position 3 to position 1).

Activity 7 – a closer look at the text. (All groups following texts for groups 1, 2 or 3 in appendix 2)
The purpose of this exercise is to allow children to understand how Shakespeare constructed the plays in the language he used. This should allow them to appreciate the complexities of the words but also to hear the rhythms and the poetry, rather than just treating it as a dry piece of text.
The class have already experienced a few of the words from the speeches or parts of text they will be looking at. They now meet a larger section to look at closely and to talk about meaning and construction. At this point, it is important to stress that we do not need to understand every word in the play in order to appreciate it, and that there are many different interpretations of the lines.
If possible, a spoken version of the speech should be played alongside the text. The library has taped versions of the plays. Spoken well and using the rhythms, the text will make much more sense. The plays were, after all, written to be heard rather than read.

The speeches used for this project are annotated in appendix 2 for meaning with a brief comment about form. Talk through some of the meanings where necessary, but also allow the children to say what they think the words might mean or why Shakespeare has chosen particular words or phrases. This should be active discovery where possible rather than just explanation.

Activity 8 – language over tableaux
This final activity builds on all previous work.

Working in groups, children are asked to produce two still images or tableaux, taking account of the texts they have just looked at:
Mature love and doting love (Group 1)
Order and chaos (Group 2)
Waking and sleeping (Group 3).

Once they have done this, they work on moving from one to another. This could use movements and language from activity 5, or could involve moving in character, drawing on activity 6.
Children could also chose to move using the rhythms of the speech, or in any other ways they think of.

Finally, language is introduced on top of the images, again drawing on previous work, and using words and phrases taken directly from the texts (copies need to be given to each group). This could be individual or choral, delivered on top of the images or during transition etc.

Show and discuss finished work.

Activity 9 - plenary. (All groups)
Talk about what the class have learnt and ask them to keep all work in mind, as they will incorporate some of it into the movement session for performance.

Lesson plans:

Dance

Dance plans
These dance plans have been written by Dan O'Neill, choreographer on the Sheffield Theatres' project in schools.

Leading to performance -
it is indicated where these dance ideas link to drama and language work at the bottom of each section.

Warm Up
• Start with breathing in through the nose & out through the mouth. Breathe normally and then a little slower and deeper.

• Incorporate the arms - use a big, wide, reaching motion, linking fingers above head and then releasing.

• Curve the torso as linked arms reach forward fold head over and then back to centre. Hang right arm on side of head and tilt/lean to right side, allowing the weight of the head to stretch neck. Repeat to the left.

• Circle shoulder, add elbow and then single arm swings under and over arm. Repeat on both sides. Then repeat stretch with both arms at the same time. Warm up hands - wriggle fingers, circle wrists, squeeze hands as if squeezing a sponge, shake out hands and arms.

• Roll down spine; walk out on hands and knees. Soften into the floor. Return to standing then repeat but using no knees into sleeping position.

• Feet:- shake out, stretch calf, pick up leg and balance, cross leg over, fold and reach forward as if reaching for remote control. Bend knee and hold foot behind you to stretch thigh.

• Fall and recover - slowly move down to floor using hands, and soft parts of body. Thighs, hips, back of arm, shoulder, into collapse shape. Recover by reversing the mechanics. Slowly speed up.

Six movement exercises focussing on A Midsummer Night's Dream

1. Sleeping Dance

At the end of the warm up they are on floor. Ask them to:

• Four favourite sleeping positions.

• Find a smooth route from one position to the next. Dead slow, then very fast. how would the context of the space effect their movement quality? (Hot, cold, exposed, dreaming, nightmares.)

Leading to performance -
Later you can add writing names with body parts, whilst scrolling through these positions.

2. Greetings

Create a duet with shared centre:
Partners line up opposite each other in long lines having agreed on a series of shared greeting which both partners do.

Ideas for types of greetings:
A Formal greeting/common greeting
B Courtly/flamboyant/symbolic
C Animalistic/beast like
D Fairies/sprites

All greetings start apart, come to centre, occur and separate back to original location. Create short sequences that can then be contained within given time/rhythm. Try performing with a variety of musical styles.
Could select one or two the whole group learn.

Leading to performance -
Language can be added as part of greetings:
e.g. 'Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania' or 'How now spirit, wither wander you?'
See exercise 6 for another way to move this into performance.

3. Writing with body parts/ Athenians in the wood

• Use any body part to draw in space the letters that make up your own name. Now write either Oberon or Titania. Now write either word only using fingers, surfaces of the head and face, ribs. It becomes very minimal. Easier to work with closed eyes.

• Adopt the pose of a tree and still write with head, hands, ribs. Eyes closed.

• Split the group so half are Athenians exploring woods.

• Athenians close eyes as it is now dark. Trees open eyes.

• If an Athenian is going the bump into another Athenian, they should acknowledge contact and may use a line or word or name from the court.

• If they bump or get near a tree the tree might say the name they are writing or else lines or words from the woods.

• The trees can become mobile and more sinister, maybe turning into beast for a beat and return to being trees.

• Switch roles so both sets do it!

Leading to performance -
This exercise works very well as a performance with music underscoring it.

4. Status

• In groups of 4, make a tableau depicting who has the highest/lowest status and the levels between. This can be drawn from imagination or from characters in the play.

• Make a new tableau that reverses the roles.

• Try to move from the first tableau to the other and back again.

• Impose a rhythmic/time constraint (i.e. move from one to the other in 4 beats, or 6 etc.). Encourage them to find both a fluid version and a rapid, almost instant transition if possible.

This leads into the next exercise:

5. Adulation/Adoration/Imitation

The person with the 'highest status' from the exercise above leads the other three acolytes through a series of high status photo poses. They then travel around the room, the other three following , desperate to perform the imitation as accurately as possible.

The high status person can stop and be attended to, fawned over and then on again. They might turn around occasionally, checking on how well his/her Acolytes are imitating their manner/moves.

Leading to performance -
These last two exercises work well as performance to music.

6. Court/Wood Dance

Using a simple four count structure and the greetings structure you can create a phrase of movement based on a courtly dance form.

A & B face each other (1). Walk towards each other. Perform greeting to each other (2). Turn to the right, walk forward (holding hands?)(3). Perform second greeting facing front (4). A and B turn away from each other 180 degrees and retrace steps to original greeting position (5). Turn to face each other. Perform third greeting (6). Walk back to original starting place (7).

1                              a   b           enter/start

2                              a                b           greeting

3                              a                b            travel, face out

4                              a                b            greeting

5                           a                b         return to first greeting position

6                             a                 b            greeting

7                      a                 b     separate

This can be extended by:
• Changing partners
• Travel in other directions
• By repeating pattern
• Adding/using language
• Whole group doing a compound learnt greeting
• By shifting tempo, how and where you place the duets at beginning.
• Moving in lines, circles, diagonals.

You can then do this with animal/fairy greetings.

Leading to performance -
This works excellently performed to music of the correct tempo.

Possible linked performance idea:
Start with courtly movement - move to Acolyte movement - then to Athenians in the forest - trees to follow Athenians - Athenians go to sleep on forest floor at the feet of trees writing 'darkness' - trees lie down too - go through sleeping dance and write letters on face - hotter night, nightmares and restlessness - wake up in shock - move to beast or fairy dream dance.

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