Education Pack

Education Pack 1 Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 Section 1: Shakespeare and the Original Twelfth Night ..................................................... 4 William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616 ...................................................................................... 5 Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre ..................................................................................... 6 Section 2: The Watermill’s Production of Twelfth Night .................................................. 10 A Brief Synopsis .............................................................................................................. 11 Character Map ................................................................................................................ 13 1920s and Twelfth Night.................................................................................................. 14 Meet the Cast ................................................................................................................. 16 Actor’s Blog .................................................................................................................... 20 Two Shows, One Set ........................................................................................................ 24 Rehearsal Diary ............................................................................................................... 26 Rehearsal Reports ........................................................................................................... 28 Section 3: Teaching & Rehearsal Exercises ...................................................................... 29 Character Mapping ......................................................................................................... 30 Emotional Corridor .......................................................................................................... 31 Credits ............................................................................................................................ 32 2 Introduction This pack has been designed to support your visit to The Watermill and on tour to watch our production of Twelfth Night. Your feedback is most welcome, please email [email protected] or call me on 01635 570927. Don’t forget that we offer workshops on most aspects of drama, and visit schools to work with students and teachers. For an education brochure, please visit the Outreach pages on our website, or contact us. We hope you find the pack useful. Heidi Bird Outreach Director Email: [email protected] | Tel: 01635 570927 The Watermill Theatre Bagnor, Newbury, Berks RG20 8AE www.watermill.org.uk www.watermill.org.uk/education_packs This pack was written and designed by Abigail Pickard Price with contributions from Beth Flintoff and Poppy Jermaine. The Principal Sponsor of Twelfth Night is Sheepdrove Organic Farm and Eco-Conference Centre and the UK Tour Sponsor is Neal’s Yard Remedies. The Sackler Trust, Principal Supporter of The Watermill’s core Education and Outreach programme. Rehearsal photos by Philip Tull. Production photos by Scott Rylander. 3 Section 1: Shakespeare and the Original Twelfth Night 4 William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616 William Shakespeare was born in Stratford- beautified with our feathers’ in reference to upon-Avon to John Shakespeare, a glove his lack of university education which made maker and wool merchant, and Elizabeth him an impostor among the more qualified Arden, the daughter of a wealthy farmer and playwrights of the time. landowner. It is believed that he was educated locally at King Edward VI Grammar The Queen’s Men, Queen Elizabeth I’s School. travelling company, had been set up in 1583 and caused a decline in other playing During the 1550s there was a growing trend companies because it brought together the for nobles to patronise travelling companies country’s leading actors. But an attempt was who would visit Shakespeare’s hometown to made to redress this in 1594 with a major perform at the Grammar School while on reshuffle of actors, forming a duopoly of the tour: there are records of more than 30 visits Lord Admiral’s Men and the Lord between 1568 and 1597. Shakespeare was Chamberlain’s Men, the latter of which four years old when these records started and Shakespeare became a member. The his father is likely to have been responsible for Chamberlain’s Men were the resident his first exposure to theatre. John company at a venue simply called ‘The Shakespeare became a central figure in Theatre’ in Shoreditch, and by August 1597 Stratford-upon-Avon when he was appointed Shakespeare had become a shareholder in the as the town Bailiff. One of his responsibilities business together with Richard Burbage and was to license the performances of these others. This new role afforded him the second travelling companies by watching previews to largest house in Stratford – New Place. check they were appropriate for public viewing. It is likely that William would have In 1599 The Theatre’s lease ran out and the attended these previews. structure was dismantled and moved across the River Thames to Southwark, where it The next surviving record is of his marriage to became The Globe Theatre. The Globe 26 year-old Anne Hathaway at the age of 18 in opened with one of Shakespeare’s plays, most 1582. Their daughter, Susannah, was born 6 likely Henry V or As You Like It, and months after their wedding. Two years later, Shakespeare’s works continued to bring Anne gave birth to twins, Judith and Hamnet, success and profit to the theatre, enjoyed by but Hamnet died at the age of 11. thousands. The Globe was one of only three theatres granted the privilege of licensing its Records of his movements are unclear in the own plays and the company’s success eight years following, but during this time he awarded them a patent from James I left his family in Stratford to begin following his accession to the throne in 1603, establishing himself in the world of theatre in when they became known as The King’s Men. London. The reason for these ‘lost years’ is The company took on a 21-year-lease of The uncertain; but playwriting was not a Blackfriars, an indoor theatre that opened in respected form of literature so authors chose 1610 with another of Shakespeare’s plays: The not to put their names to plays, and it may be Tempest. that Shakespeare was writing during this time but without putting a name to his work. In Two years later, Shakespeare returned to 1592 his name reappears in a sour judgement Stratford, retiring from theatre to live out his made by dramatist Robert Greene on his remaining years with his family in the comfort deathbed, calling him ‘an upstart crow, of New Place, until he died in 1616. The cause 5 of his death is a mystery, but it seems he tragedies, the plays reflected the concerns drank away his last hours in the company of and widespread social and cultural change in his fellow writers, Ben Jonson and Michael the period. Shakespeare played a key role in Drayton. The vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon the rise of theatre-going in Elizabethan and noted in his diary that they ‘had a merry Jacobean England: and as a result shaped meeting and it seems drank too hard for theatre and performance culture as we know Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted’. it today. He was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon on April 25 1616. POPPY JERMAINE Many people consider him the world’s Sources greatest playwright, but he was also a skilled The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642 by poet and actor. In 1623 his works were Andrew Gurr published as a collection, known as ‘The First Shakespeare Survey, Volume 60: Theatres for Folio.’ Among them are a number of plays Shakespeare by J. R. Mulryne regarded as the greatest works in the English The Oxford Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet language. From histories, to comedies, to Oxford World Classics Top left: Viola (Rebecca Lee). Bottom left: Malvolio (Peter Duke), Aguecheek (Mike Slader), Toby Belch (Lauryn Redding), Maria (Victoria Blunt). Right: Sebastian (Stuart Wilde) and Olivia (Aruhan Galieva). 6 Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre Beth Flintoff takes a look at the theatrical world in which Shakespeare was writing. At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, do this was an actor who was also a ‘theatre’ consisted of ordinary people carpenter, called James Burbage. His two enjoying plays about the Bible, performed by sons, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, took on actors who travelled across the country with the family tradition after he died. Theatre was their props and costumes in a wagon. becoming extremely popular by now, but Although the plays were enjoyed, travelling some important people were still very ‘players’ were generally treated with great suspicious of the whole thing. Religious men, suspicion – they were no better than ‘rogues upset that plays were so much more popular and vagabonds.’ At the time working men than going to Church, described them as always had a master - if a poor man did not ‘beastly’ and ‘filthy’. Plays were often banned have a master it meant he was, effectively, a or got into trouble for making comments that beggar. Actors would have seemed were seen as subversive. Writing in a negative dangerously free of all masters. There was way about the monarchy in the time of Queen even an Act of Parliament called the ‘Act for Elizabeth I or James I was an extremely the Punishment of Vagabonds’.

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