This Wooden O

Julia, Lydia and Lenin at the original location of The Globe theater. Due to persnickety landowners, the replica of the Globe was built about 300 meters away, on the riverfront.

One of the great opportunites that AHSTF offers is the chance to have an "acting workshop at The Globe." From my own experience as an Education Artist as Shakespeare & Co., I know that this experience can vary widely based on whom your workshop leader is. Well, once again, luck was on our side, and we were gifted with Colin, a veteran actor and master teacher.

It was interesting to watch his progression. The first part of the workshop is a tour of the theater and some explanation of the life and times of Shakespeare. He pointed out the open roof and talked about how performing the plays in natural light in the middle of the day necessitated indicating the illusion of darkness by other means. He talked about the Elizabethan obsession with order and the natural world, which is why the area above the stage was called The Heaven, and the highest rows of audience seating, "the Gods." He was very funny and engaging throughout this lecture, but a bit on autopilot. Once you've done several hundred of these workshops, it's just not fresh any more. But since he was a master teacher as well as an actor, he called attention to his technique of making active eye contact with each kid during his talk. He told them that the reason he was asking them their names and bouncing questions off of them was to create a relationship, which would keep them engaged. Brooke later made the connection: "it's why I stayed focused through his whole lecture. He was seeing all of us, and really talking to us. With Dave the other day, it was just so much information poured onto us, but he wasn't talking to us individually, so in the end, jet lag took over and I closed my eyes for a few minutes."

We then moved from the theater to the rehearsal rooms for the second part of the workshop, walking up a stairwell painted with "to be or not to be" written in dozens of world languages. Colin took the kids through a warm up, explaining as he went the purpose for the exercises, tying each back to a tangible skill of communication. The kids snickered with delight when he mentioned the inter-costal muscles, because they often suspect that I am making things up out of whole cloth, and are always surprised and delighted when an outside expert echoes my vocabulary.

He then handed out a scene from Hamlet (the "words, words, words" one), and began to take the kids through a progression of text work exercises. He had all the kids working simultaneously, so everyone got to experience the lesson and there was no performative pressure for them. As they worked, he'd stop and reinforce the acting skills as well as the general communication skills that each level of the progression was using.

As the kids worked, Colin started to catch fire. I watched him watch the kids, a genuine smile creeping on his face, punctuated by appreciative laughter. It's a reaction that immediately brought me back to my Ed. Artist days; the delight in seeing unfamiliar kids engage fully in the moment--bringing text genuinely alive, rather than focusing on "getting it right." As he moved them through the levels, his British reserve melted and he caught fire with excitement of seeing some neat moments pop up in the kids' exploration. His enthusiasm was palpable and genuine. Since what we were doing in the workshop was familiar and close to the way we already work, the kids were relaxed and confident. I confess, always want workshop leaders to "like" my kids and think they are special, even though I know from the other side of the experience that every group is special and Ed Artists generally like all of the kids they see. But more important than "liking" them, he gave them actual techniques codified to a memorable series of words and gestures that they will find easy to use and extremely effective.

Julia later declared it "the best workshop I've ever taken."

#London