Local students work with Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre news
OVER 250 students from seven state secondary and special educational needs schools in Southwark have been working with Shakespeare’s Globe for the last four months to develop practical skills, which will help them across their school curriculum and importantly when they go onto to employment or higher education.
The culminating celebration of Globe Education’s annual Our Theatre project, supported by PwC, sees all the students coming together and performing The Winter’s Tale on the Globe stage at 1pm on March 7, 2013, to an audience of those who live, work and learn in Southwark.
The annual project is Shakespeare’s Globe’s commitment to continue founder Sam Wanamaker’s vision to work with the Globe’s local Southwark community. Supported by PwC since it began 16 years ago, the project has seen over 5,000 school children take part. This year’s students include those with complex special educational needs and gifted and talented students from Shakespeare’s Globe Youth Theatre.
As well as being given the opportunity to experience performing on the Globe stage, they have been helped to develop confidence and self-esteem, as well as speaking and listening skills, all necessary across their school activities and for later in higher education and the workplace.
David Adair, head of community affairs at PwC, said: “This is the 17th year of our support for the Shakespeare’s Globe Our Theatre project and we’re proud to help Globe practitioners work closely with teachers and students in Southwark schools over a 12 week period, culminating in the children’s performance on the Globe Theatre stage.
“This unique programme supports PwC’s Corporate Sustainability strategy which includes promoting social inclusion, providing a creative forum to develop essential skills and inspire future life chances in the community”.
Throughout the Our Theatre project student input is important at every stage, even the design concept. Southwark’s young students gain work-based learning skills with Globe staff, professional design agency Dogstar Abstracts, gaining an all-round understanding of the process involved in creating a production for the Globe stage.
This year students will also work alongside students from the Royal College of Music who will perform the music for the play, and introduce those on the project to consider the wide range of possibilities for education opportunities beyond school.
Teaching about and through The Winter’s Tale, Globe Education practitioners use active learning techniques to explore Shakespeare’s language, story lines and characters, employing many of the same techniques as actors and directors in the rehearsal room.
The project extends beyond Southwark with a lively supporting website providing a range of creative English and drama exercises for students and teachers nationwide: shakespearesglobe.com/ourtheatre.
Students are encouraged to explore further with interactive tools which enable them to discover the characters and their relationships and create scenarios to act out in the classroom. A discussion board poses questions based on the events of the play, fostering lively debate and discussion to help students learn most effectively and support teachers in delivering the curriculum.
Globe Education Projects Community Manager, Maggie Tildesley, describes the project:
‘The value of the arts in the secondary school curriculum has been hotly debated recently. Southwark students come together at Shakespeare’s Globe to perform a play that epitomises the magic of theatre and celebrates the arts as a force for transformation in society. “It is required you do awake your faith” Paulina tells Leontes at the end of the play; what better way to have faith in the next generation, to raise their aspirations and help them to imagine a bright future than through Shakespeare and the arts?’
Tickets for the Our Theatre performance of The Winter’s Tale are free and can be booked by emailing community.t@shakespearesglobe.com. For more information visit shakespearesglobe.com/ourtheatre.
Our Theatre is part of Globe Education’s Spring events season, Shakespeare Playing Indoors.