WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S STUDENT-TEACHER STUDY GUIDE CREATED BY THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF LANTERN THEATER COMPANY About the Lantern Lantern Theater Company produces plays that investigate and illuminate what is essential in the human spirit and the spirit of the times. We seek to be a vibrant, contributing member of our community, exposing audiences to great theater, inviting participation in dialogue and discussion, and educating audience members about artistic and social issues. Illumination Education Program Our Illumination education program complements and expands on the work of classroom teachers to bring an essential artistic lens to curricular material, allowing students to connect to classic stories in a dynamic way and empowering teachers with new approaches to traditional literature. Our lessons are designed to support student development in three key areas: the ability to think critically and problem solve, the ability to communicate eff ectively, and the ability to collaborate. Following a decade of providing arts-integrated instruction in the classroom, we have found that exposure to the theatrical discipline deepens student understanding of assigned material and fosters empathy and positive collaborative habits – essential skills that will provide long-term benefi ts to students into their adult lives. If you or your students are interested in learning more about our education programs or the world of professional theater, please contact M. Craig Getting, Education Director, at [email protected] or 215.829.9002 x104. Lantern Theater Company’s education programming is part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. Lantern Theater Company’s education programming is made possible with leadership support from the William Penn Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as funding from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional major support is received from the Wyncote Foundation, the Hilda and Preston Davis Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, CHG Charitable Trust, and the Philadelphia Culture Fund, as well as contributions from numerous corporations, foundations, and individuals. www.lanterntheater.org 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome ........................................................ 4 Meet the Company ....................................5 About the Author ....................................... 6 About the Play’s Style ..............................7 Setting and Characters ............................8 Timeline ......................................................9-11 Glossary ........................................................12 From the Dramaturg ..........................13-17 Status and Hierarchy ............................13 Comedies and Tragedies ....................14 Dramatic Irony ........................................15 Decision Making and Fate ..................16 Making the Play ................................... 18-19 Classroom Activities ........................20-32 Four Corner Debate ............................20 Storytelling Without Words .............28 Scenes and Secrets ............................. 30 COVER: Tyler Elliott and Melissa Rakiro in Lantern Theater Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet (2018). All Lantern production photos by Mark Garvin. Juliet’s balcony at Casa di Guilietta in Verona, Italy ©2021 LANTERN THEATER COMPANY | CONTENTS MAY BE REPRODUCED BY PARTICIPATING EDUCATORS FOR CLASSROOM USE ONLY. 4 WELCOME Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, “Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. “ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act I, Prologue) At Lantern Theater Company, we believe that great plays can make a diff erence in the lives of people who see them. We act on this belief not only by telling powerful stories, but also by inviting participation in dialogue and discussion about our productions. Great theater can leave the audience asking big questions, and here are some questions your students might investigate before seeing Romeo and Juliet. What are the limits of loyalty? What would we risk for love? What do we owe to our families, and what do they owe to us? How can we bring enemies together? What power is there in forgiveness, and what would it take to earn it? This study guide will provide you and your students with information on the context of the play and its themes. We have also included activities to bring its themes of feuds and secrets to life. After seeing the play, we encourage your students to revisit the above questions so they can better compare the story of Romeo and Juliet by unknown artist, 1860 Romeo, Juliet, and their families with their own. ©2021 LANTERN THEATER COMPANY | CONTENTS MAY BE REPRODUCED BY PARTICIPATING EDUCATORS FOR CLASSROOM USE ONLY. 5 MEET THE COMPANY Mike Dees Tyler Elliott Adam Hammet Annette Kaplafka Friar Laurence/ Romeo/Ensemble Mercutio/Ensemble Nurse/Ensemble Ensemble Keith Livingston Brian McCann Lee Minora Ned Pryce Benvolio/Ensemble Lord Capulet/ Lady Capulet Tybalt/Paris/ Ensemble Ensemble Kevin Hoover Asaki Kuruma SCENIC DESIGNER COSTUME DESIGNER J. Dominic Chacon Daniel Perelstein LIGHTING DESIGNER SOUND DESIGNER J. Alex Cordaro Meghan Winch FIGHT DIRECTOR DRAMATURG Melissa Rakiro Arthur Lee Juliet Robinson Erynn Carr and Rebekah Sinewe Apothecary/ STAGE MANAGERS Ensemble DIRECTED BY Charles McMahon This live performance was fi lmed in April 2018 at the Mandell Theater at Drexel University in Philadelphia ©2021 LANTERN THEATER COMPANY | CONTENTS MAY BE REPRODUCED BY PARTICIPATING EDUCATORS FOR CLASSROOM USE ONLY. 6 ABOUT THE AUTHOR William Shakespeare is possibly the most celebrated writer of the English language. His work has survived for over 400 years, and is performed on stages and studied in classrooms around the world today. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon- Avon, 100 miles northwest of London. His father was a leatherworker and a public fi gure, and Shakespeare would have attended school until the age of about 15, learning Latin and writing. At 18 he married Anne Hathaway, and they had three children. By 1592, Shakespeare was living and working in London as a playwright and actor with a theater troupe called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. During his 20-year theater career, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and 150 poems. His work has been translated into countless languages, and the Globe Theatre in London — a recreation of the theater in which many of his works were fi rst performed — recently produced a tour that took Hamlet to every country in the world over the course of two years. His most famous plays include the comedies A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and Much Ado About Nothing; the tragedies Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello; the history plays Richard III and Henry V; and the romances The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale. He died in Stratford in 1616 at the age of 52. William Shakespeare ©2021 LANTERN THEATER COMPANY | CONTENTS MAY BE REPRODUCED BY PARTICIPATING EDUCATORS FOR CLASSROOM USE ONLY. 7 ABOUT THE PLAY’S STYLE Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s eleven tragedies, a group that includes Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Shakespeare’s tragedies have much in common with classical Greek tragedies: generally, a person in a high position begins the play essentially happy, then makes choices that bring about their downfall. They usually have a fatal fl aw of some kind, a personality trait that informs those choices and leads directly to the tragic outcome. The tragic heroes of Shakespeare’s plays do not usually survive the play, and those they leave behind are charged with making sense of the death and what that means for their world. Romeo and Juliet is unique among Shakespeare’s tragedies in that its central tragic characters are not themselves especially powerful or royal. Their families are wealthy and prominent, but they themselves are teenagers, without positions of offi cial infl uence. In Hamlet and King Lear, the title characters are royals, and in Othello and Macbeth they are military commanders. Romeo and Juliet’s power comes not from governmental positions or royal blood, but from the eff ect their choices have on themselves, their families, and Verona as a whole. Romeo and Juliet by painter Frank Bernard Dicksee, 1884 ©2021 LANTERN THEATER COMPANY | CONTENTS MAY BE REPRODUCED BY PARTICIPATING EDUCATORS FOR CLASSROOM USE ONLY. 8 SETTING AND CHARACTERS Romeo and Juliet is set during the Renaissance in Verona and later Mantua, two cities in northern Italy. Romeo is a son of the Montague slighted. After the party, he seeks family, a prominent house in out Romeo to fi ght him. He kills Verona. He is sensitive and prone Mercutio instead, and is then slain to lovesickness. He is in love with by Romeo. Rosaline when the play begins, but he forgets her when he meets Mercutio is a good friend of Juliet. His family is feuding with the Romeo’s. He is witty and fun-loving. Capulets. His family is not aligned with either house in the feud, though he aligns Juliet is the daughter of Lord and himself with Romeo. He dies when Lady Capulet, another important Romeo attempts to intervene