We ran a series of three workshops on Taming of the Shrew at Ripley St Thomas, using practical drama, contextual materials on early modern views of marriage including John Fletcher’s ‘sequel’ The Tamer Tamed, and work on early modern clothing and costume and costume design. We were thrilled to work with such intelligent, imaginative and intuitive students and to welcome some of them to a screening of the Globe production at the Dukes Theatre and to an abridged production Pocket-Sized Shrew at Lancaster Castle. Teacher Stephanie Mitchell commented on how well the workshops had helped with understanding – and with the controlled assessment, an endorsement which made our endeavours during the Season of Shakespeare really worthwhile:
‘The students found that the active approaches really helped them to understand how the text should be read and responded to. They thought that the acting out of the scenes was fun and enabled them to think about how characters interact with one another which brought alive the words on the page’.
‘The content of the sessions really linked well with our Controlled Assessment and provided relevant supporting detail that linked to the text and the question they’ll be answering. Several of them had moments where ‘the penny dropped’ and they could make the connections between the Shakespeare text, the context and the poetry we’ve been studying. It’s a real positive for them to have another voice telling them information and, as the teacher, I really enjoyed rediscovering my love of learning too’.
‘I can thoroughly recommend this experience, it was relevant and hassle free with excellent quality delivery’.