Lear TABLE of CONTENTS

king lear TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1 Art That Lives 2 Bard’s Bio 3 The First Folio 4 Shakespeare’s England 4 The English Renaissance Theater 6 Barbara Gaines Criss Henderson Courtyard-style Theater 8 Artistic Director Executive Director Timeline 9 Chicago Shakespeare Theater is Chicago’s professional theater dedi- Shakespeare’s King Lear cated to the works of William Shakespeare. Founded as Shakespeare Repertory in 1986, the company moved to its seven-story home on Navy Dramatis Personae 11 The Story 12 Pier in 1999. In its Elizabethan-style courtyard theater, 500 seats on three Act-by-Act Synopsis 12 levels wrap around a deep thrust stage—with only nine rows separating Shakespeare, Tragedy and Us 14 the farthest seat from the stage. Chicago Shakespeare also features a Something Borrowed, Something New… 16 flexible 180-seat black box studio theater, a Teacher Resource Center, and Sorting Out the Two Text Controversy 18 a Shakespeare specialty bookstall. This Great Stage of Fools 19 Playnotes: “Too True” 21 Now in its twenty-eighth season, the Theater has produced nearly the en- Playnotes: “Endurance” 23 tire Shakespeare canon: All’s Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopa- What the Critics Say 24 tra, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline, Hamlet, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, King John, King Lear, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Macbeth, Measure A Play Comes to Life for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A A Look Back at King Lear in Performance 29 Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Pericles, A Conversation with the Director 32 Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Death and Aging in King Lear 34 Tempest, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, The Two Frank Sinatra and His Music 36 Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and The Winter’s Tale. Chicago Shakespeare Theater was the 2008 recipient of the Regional Classroom Activities and Theatre Tony Award. Chicago’s Jeff Awards year after year have honored the Theater, including repeated awards for Best Production and Best Di- Resources rector, the two highest honors in Chicago theater. Before You Read the Play 38 As You Read the Play 42 Since Chicago Shakespeare’s founding, its programming for young audi- After You Read the Play 59 ences has been an essential element in the realization of its mission. Team The Performance: Preparing and Reflecting 62 Shakespeare supports education in our schools, where Shakespeare is A “Read and View” Teaching Strategy 67 part of every required curriculum. As a theater within a multicultural city, Strategies for Using Film to we are committed to bringing Shakespeare to a young and diverse audi- Teach Shakespeare 72 ence of 40,000 students each year. Team Shakespeare’s programming Theater Warm-ups 82 includes free teacher workshops, student matinees of main stage shows, Techno Shakespeare 86 post-performance discussions, comprehensive teacher handbooks, and Suggested Readings 91 an abridged, original production each year of one of the “curriculum plays.” Team Shakespeare offers a region-wide forum for new vision and enthusi- Acknowledgments asm for teaching Shakespeare in our schools. In 2012, the Folger Shake- This Teacher Handbook grew out of a team effort of teachers past speare Library in Washington, DC, honored that vision with the prestigious and present, Chicago Shakespeare Theater artists, interns, educa- Shakespeare Steward Award. The 2014-15 Season offers a student mati- tors, and scholars. Education intern and doctoral candidate Steph- nee series for three of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s full-length produc- anie Kucsera was the lead writer and editor of the King Lear hand- tions: in the fall semester, Shakespeare’s King Lear and an adaptation of book, with contributions from interns Allison Clayman and Sarah Tryon. Chicago Shakespeare Theater gratefully acknowledges the Mozart’s The Magic Flute, performed by South Africa’s Isango Ensemble; groundbreaking and indelible work of Dr. Rex Gibson and the Cam- and in the spring, Shakespeare’s Pericles. Also this spring, a 75-minute bridge School Shakespeare Series, and The Folger Shakespeare abridged version of Macbeth will be performed at the Theater on Navy Pier Institute, whose contributions to the field of teaching have helped and will tour to schools and theaters across the region. We hope that you shape our own work through the years. and your students will enjoy our work—and Shakespeare’s creative genius ©2014, Chicago Shakespeare Theater brought to life on stage. Marilyn J Halperin Director of Education Jason Harrington Education Outreach Manager Molly Topper Learning Programs Manager Where do you go When it starts to rain Where will you sleep When the night time comes What do you do When your heart's in pain Where will you run When the right time comes These are the things That I want to know — Sung by Frank Sinatra Lyrics by Arnold Sundgaard hen his decision to divide the kingdom among his three daughters turns into a W catalyst for unimaginable catastrophe, an aging king finds himself without house and home. In a world now redefined by its unfamiliarity, foolishness is found in those meant to be wise—and wisdom resides in fools and madmen. As royal residences become places of treachery and danger, the ramshackle hovels of “unaccommodated man” now provide shelter and refuge. What would we find at the end of the road after we’ve lost everything we know to belong to us? Just beyond its borders of desolation, Shakespeare’s masterpiece unveils truths that are revealed in the darkest of times. Through moments of brutality and grace, of unbearable pain and untold empathy, the characters of King Lear embark upon personal journeys with no less at stake than their humanity. u KING Larry Yando as King Lear, photo by Jeff Sciortino as King Lear, Larry Yando written by directed by LEARWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE barbara gaines Art That Lives How can you help us give rama is a living art. It is written to you the best performance be performed live before a group we can? D of people who form an audience and experience it together, just as you u Please, no talking during the performance It dis- will here at the Chicago Shakespeare tracts the actors as well as the people sitting nearby. Theater. This tradition of performance and observance, of drama as com- u Respond naturally to our play Emotions are part of munication, is an historically rich and drama. We hope that you'll laugh, cry and even gasp— complex one that reaches far back in time. Textual evidence but as a natural response to the story, and not in order from Egypt and Mesopotamia—even art like cave paintings de- to distract attention from the stage. picting men disguised as animals—reveals that since ancient times, impersonation and imitation have been used not only u Please leave all “noisemakers”—food, gum, cell ritualistically but also as a means of expression and communi- phones, iPods, etc.—back at school or on the bus cation, a way to impart the knowledge of the community. In a quiet theater, wrappers and munching are heard by all, the actors included. The beginnings of Western drama further developed in the religious ritual and festivals of the ancient Greeks, while their u No photographs of any kind, please Flashbulbs theater also took on new emphasis as a sophisticated mode of can make the actors lose their focus and can be dan- storytelling, especially as a way of communicating the history gerous. Digital cameras, along with all other kinds of of a culture and imagining new heroic tales. The drama of Eu- recording devices, are prohibited, as is text-messaging. rope’s Middle Ages was closely tied to forms of religious observance, but the medievals also used theater to teach biblical stories, present the lives of saints, and creatively communicate also a storyteller when you experience live theater. We hope the moral ideals of the community. It is this long and varied tra- you’ll enjoy your role—and will help us to give you a dramatic dition of community engagement and communication through experience that you’ll always remember. drama that Shakespeare and the Renaissance playwrights in- herited—and from which they would both borrow and imagine [Theatrical performance] is essentially a sociable, com- new possibilities. munal affair. This is important. To resist this is, I think, to ruin one of the very important parts of the theatrical Drama not only depicts human communication, it is human experience. Let the play and let the fact that temporarily communication. But in the theater, unlike television or film, a you are not your private self, but a member of a closely fused group, make it easy for the performance to ’take two-way communication occurs between the actors and their you out of yourself.’ This, I suggest, is the object of go- audience. When you experience theatrical storytelling, you are ing to a play…to be taken out of yourself, out of your not simply on the receiving end of this communicative process: ordinary life, away from the ordinary world of everyday. the audience, as a community, is also a participant. We are —TYRONE GUTHRIE, 1962 quite used to thinking about the actors’ roles in a play, but may find it strange to imagine ourselves, the audience, playing an important role in this living art. Because theater is art that lives, each performance is guaranteed to be different, depending in part upon an audience’s response.

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