{"id":367,"date":"2013-11-12T13:59:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T13:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/?page_id=367"},"modified":"2014-02-13T17:45:48","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T17:45:48","slug":"workshop-reviews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/lancaster-season-of-shakespeare\/workshops\/workshop-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Solihull Sixth Form College"},"content":{"rendered":"
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‘I found the activities fun and invaluable to my understanding of Shakespeare’<\/p><\/div>\n

Leaving aside the bonfire and toffee apples, the 5th November kick-started our Shakespeare workshops\u00a0at the Shakespeare Academy at Solihull’s Sixth Form College, Birmingham. Professor Alison Findlay, accompanied by two PhD students, ran ‘Shakespeare With Chairs’ <\/strong>an interactive 2 hour workshop on Shakespeare’s\u00a0Richard II\u00a0<\/em>with a group of 14 students. Beginning with\u00a0Bolingbroke’s ‘In God’s name I’ll ascend the regal throne!’, the group explored the\u00a0precarious\u00a0authority of the usurper sitting on the royal chair by\u00a0delivering the Bishop of Carlisle’s prophecy as\u00a0a\u00a0menacing choral chant\u00a0while they circled round the throne.\u00a0Students remarked\u00a0‘the acting really helped me to put the characters own thoughts into perspective.<\/strong>‘ <\/strong>The students\u00a0then\u00a0worked in\u00a0smaller groups, performing sections from the Flint Castle Scene (Act 3 Scene 3) and\u00a0Richard’s\u00a0forced public resignation of the crown in Westminster Hall\u00a0(Act 4 Scene 1) which ignited discussions about spatiality, religion, kingship and the body politic.<\/p>\n

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‘I got to understand Richard II in more depth and got a greater understanding of the text’<\/p><\/div>\n

Provided with crowns and sceptres as symbols of royal authority, the students were enthusiastic\u00a0about a technique\u00a0that ‘showed how to incorporate props into a performance\u00a0‘ <\/strong>and further enabled them to engage with the text prior to seeing the RSC’s production in Stratford. When asked to give feedback, one student observed ‘the major benefit of the workshop I believe was because we were acting’<\/strong>\u00a0because drama\u00a0‘was more effective in putting across the main characteristics of each scene’<\/strong>\u00a0This energetic and thought-provoking workshop provided a space for students to engage with Shakespeare’s script as a\u00a0multi-dimensional text. Participants remarked: ‘The focus on the theatrical side of the play helped me to gain a greater understanding of the character’s actions and emotions throughout’ <\/strong>and ‘the workshop was definitely a brilliant experience’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Leaving aside the bonfire and toffee apples, the 5th November kick-started our Shakespeare workshops\u00a0at the Shakespeare Academy at Solihull’s Sixth Form College, Birmingham. Professor Alison Findlay, accompanied by two PhD students, ran ‘Shakespeare With Chairs’ an interactive 2 hour workshop … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"parent":339,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-367","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/367\/revisions\/393"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/shakespeare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}