Alongside our productions, for the last five years we have been running an extensive programme of education work, both 'at home' in the theatre, and 'away', visiting schools, colleges and universities.
We are prepared to work on any play, Shakespeare or modern, we can support any English or Drama syllabus, and at the heart of all our work is the belief that a playscript, like sheet music, can only be fully appreciated in performance. All of our workshops are designed according to the teacher's brief. Whether your students need an introduction to the play and its issues, an in-depth exploration of a key scene or scenes, a workshop focussing on a particular character or group of characters, a lively revision workshop for consolidation before the exam, or a pick-and-mix combination of the above, we can provide it.
As long as there is a hall or drama studio big enough to accommodate us, we can visit your organisastion, and our workshops, led by actors from the company's productions, are a combination of discussion, participation, and performance. Workshops can either be designed so that students can participate as actors, or just participate from the audience.
Each workshop is specifically tailored to its brief, and can be organised to last any time from an hour to a week. This flexibility means that we can produce a package on almost any budget, and - depending on the budget - bringing along two actors, or our entire cast.
We are currently taking bookings for education workshops or talks in schools or colleges, and can offer a package to meet any requirements or (almost) any budget.
Please contact us to enquire about a booking.
Helen G. Lunn, Course Leader, GCSE English Language
Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington.
Production visit followed by morning workshop: Twelfth Night
I would encourage any teacher of English who is teaching Shakespeare to consider what The Arden Theatre Company has to offer. Our experience led to improved coursework and a far deeper and clearer understanding of the play in general and the characters in particular. Our daytime GCSE English Language Course is generally taken by students who are re-sitting because of a disappointing result in their summer school exam. This makes for a rather less than enthusiastic cohort in the first place, let alone when they realise Shakespeare is back on the menu. Sitting in a stuffy classroom re-reading a playscript with a predominantly male and reluctant clientele has to be a pretty pointless way of experiencing Shakespeare (even with a dvd at the ready) so the idea of experiencing a performance and one whose members’ ages were so close to our students’ seemed a dream come true. Many students had never been inside a theatre before let alone experience a Shakespeare play.
The director, Rob Icke, listened carefully to my requirements and went on to produce just the package we needed. We were able to attend a matinee – essential since the likelihood of them travelling to see a performance is virtually nil. The students were able to see the play as it should be experienced, complete with costumes, scenery, lighting etc. Seeing a performance brought the play to life.
In classes following the performance, students had a clear recall of the main points of the play and the characters. I have always found Feste a particularly difficult character to get across to the students, so I was amazed that so many understood his role in the play and subsequently went on to write about him in their coursework.
Following up the performance, the cast visited College to run a workshop for the students. This was a brilliant experience. The students were captivated by the idea that someone – ie the director – can actually tell performers how to perform their role and that there is more than one way of speaking the lines and depicting the characters. Their laid back approach and the realistic way of presenting the medium of theatre and the life and times of the playwright – a man and not just a name - went down well with the students and they were intensely engaged. It was hugely satisfying to hear them discussing ideas with the actors and laughing at the antics of Malvolio.
Given that these students are pretty hard-bitten when it comes to Shakespeare, the experience led to a host of positive responses. The coursework produced following this was the best we have ever had for Shakespeare and later in the year when students were talking about their experiences of English during the term, the performance and workshop were cited as the most interesting and useful activities that we had done.
Although we had intended to do ‘Twelfth Night’ next year, such was the impact of the performance and workshop package that we are thinking seriously of reflecting the choices of the theatre company so that we can take full advantage of their skills and talent in bringing Shakespeare to life. Meeting Rob and his company is a breath of fresh air and I can heartily recommend the company to anyone teaching Shakespeare to reluctant students.
Julie Claydon
Rossmere Primary School, Hartlepool.
Afternoon Workshop: The Tempest I thought that I would e-mail to pass on to Robert and the rest of the Arden Group how much our children enjoyed working with them. It really made the children really excited about the stories that Shakespeare tells and hopefully this will stay with them into Secondary School. The whole afternoon was really well paced and organised and the group were extremely professional. The children have completed some writing for the group about the play and their thoughts about the work they did in the afternoon.
Jane Cumming, Curriculum Leader for English
Barnsley Academy, Barnsley.
Morning Workshop: Journey's End
Situation
The Year 11 cohort who were due to complete their OCR examination on Journey's End contained five of the most difficult and disaffected students in the year group. Fifty percent of the students displayed disaffection and did not engage with learning beyond the classroom.
Input
Despite the level of disaffection and lack of personal responsibility for learning the English teacher contacted the Arden Theatre Company in an attempt to provide meaningful experiences of the play with the students.
The workshop
The actors provided experience and knowledge of the play that the children had been privy to but had not engaged with nor adpoted within their own learning. They also brought a perspective to the play not yet studied with the students which allowed them to engage with new material within a known context. Prior to the company's visit the students had studied the play and half of the group had attended a performance.
The benefits
- Experiencing the characters within the direction of thought provided by a professional outside of the classroom but within the known confines of the school hall provided the ingredients that the students needed to evaluate their own learning. It was obvious that some of the students had not engaged with the play at all and had merely completed activities or "red" the text, or did not feel confident enough to share what they had. All of the actors involved in this workshop worked incredibly hard to ensure that this did not mar their performance or the learning aspect of what they needed to share with the group.
- Student groups with the actors working in a carousel movement to engage the students and support their thought processes was very successful. This was partly due to excellent work provided beforehand in engaging the students to consider the play from the prospective of individual characters and through the language of the director. It was also partly due to the fact that by this stage of the experience the students had gained some confidence in relating to the actors and respecting their knowledge, experience and interpretation of the play.
- The benefit of this experience to individuals was twofold:
- For some students the workshop experience made them realise that although they thought that they knew the play they had really only scratched the surfcace and had a lot to do to ensure that they engage with the key ideas, themes, characters and authorial intent.
- For some students it highlighted the fact that they did have knowledge of the play and could engage appropriately with key ideas and the demonstration of ideas as seen by a theatre director.
The providers
At all times the providers, Arden Theatre Company, displayed professional and patient approaches in both whole group work and in engaging students in smaller group work.
The activities provided were excellent quality and designed to support the student engagement with the text - the key area through which these particular students would achieve the B grade.
Appropriate focus on thinking skills and developing student responses to sections of the text was a valuable experience for this year group.
The workshop was an experience that could only have been developed through the use the Arden Theatre Company because the expertise and knowledge of character/acting and production experience could not be provided by Secondary English teachers. This was therefore an excellent and well worthwhile activity that I would recommend to any Curriculum Leader of English, teacher or school needing to support students who are working with drama texts as part of their GCSE English Literature examinations.
Although this workshop does need to be seen in context of all the other work completed with this group to make evaluations of examination results it is still worth identifying the examination success of a small number of this group where achievement beyond that expected is highlighted.
One student who was expected to achieve a C on this unit achieved a B. Four students who were expected to just manage a C grade achieved one mark off a B grade.
All other students achieved as identified on Fischer Family Trust information and this workshop was one reason the drama unit was a successful experience for the Year 11 cohort of our school.
