We use A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it is so magical, silly, and fun. It is also wonderfully relevant to the experience of coming of age. It also has more than enough scope to challenge student and professional artists. We have had great success with it at Laurier Heights Elementary-Junior High, Altario K-12, Buck Mountain Central Junior/Senior High, Youngstown School, and Eastglen High School.
The Tempest has an incredible breadth and depth of vision, excellent buffoonery, much potential for movement, and a fascinating range of human and non-human characters.
King Lear is a perfect fit for the English 30 curriculum. It is attractive to students in part because of the extremes of the characters – from the goodness and loyalty of Cordelia and Edgar to the hate-hardened evil of Goneril and Edmund. It deals with basic human questions very powerfully, and is a great opportunity for character work. We have done a residency on this play at Buck Mountain Central School
Romeo and Juliet is about a lot of the struggles that teens and other humans go through regarding love and hate, and it is on the grade 10 curriculum. There is great opportunity in it for stage combat and group dance.
Macbeth mixes the moral, the mythic and the supernatural in a distinctly human way. The macho, warrior culture in the play also has a great deal in it to attract many young men, who sometimes exclude themselves from other artistic activities on the grounds of machismo. The young ladies love to play the witches, and there is plenty of opportunity for stage combat for both genders.
The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Andromache, The Frogs: Every generation exposed to the ancient Greek plays since the Renaissance has been amazed at how intensely full of life they are, and how contemporary they feel. They also give excellent opportunities for choral speech and movement, ritual, puppetry and mask work.
Our adapted versions of The Frogs (a great hit at St. Mary’s School in Edmonton) and Andromache are perfect fits with the grade 6 curriculum. The Bacchae is easily updated to suit the concerns and experiences of high schools students, as we have done at St. Joseph’s High School in Edmonton.
The Coming of the Kings, Ted Hughes (Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 90s and noted writer of children’s plays) is a fun and thought-provoking modern retelling of the Christmas story that engages students through poetic language, expressive movement, physical comedy, and traditional Christmas wonder. It is the perfect holiday season project, especially for Catholic and Christian schools.
Theatre Prospero 