TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 01 Art That Lives 02 Bard’s Bio 02 The First Folio 03 Shakespeare’s England 04 The Renaissance Theater 05 Courtyard-style Theater 06 Barbara Gaines Criss Henderson Timeline 08 Artistic Director Executive Director Shakespeare’s Henry V Chicago Shakespeare Theater is Chicago’s professional theater dedi- Dramatis Personae 10 cated to the works of William Shakespeare. Founded as Shakespeare The Story 11 Repertory in 1986, the company moved to its seven-story home on Navy Who’s Who in Henry V 11 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 What Is a “History” Play? 13 the farthest seat from the stage. Chicago Shakespeare also features a Shakespeare’s “History” Plays 13 flexible 180-seat black box studio theater, a Teacher Resource Center, and Tetralogy Timeline 15 a Shakespeare specialty bookstall. Henry V’s French Connection 16 Shakespeare’s Chorus 18 Now in its twenty-seventh season, the Theater has produced nearly the en- Something Borrrowed, Something New tire Shakespeare canon: All’s Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopa- Shakespeare’s Sources 19 tra, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline, Hamlet, Henry The Real Henry V 20 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 for Scholars’ Perspectives Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry A King’s Performance 22 V, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Pericles, Richard II, Richard III, Between the Lines 23 Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Timon of Ath- What the Critics Say 25 ens, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and The Winter’s Tale. Chicago Shakespeare Theater was the 2008 recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award. Chi- A Play Comes to Life cago’s Jeff Awards year after year have honored the Theater, including Henry V in Performance 29 repeated awards for Best Production and Best Director, the two highest A Discussion with Two Directors 33 honors in Chicago theater. Since Chicago Shakespeare’s founding, its programming for young audi- Classroom Activities and ences has been an essential element in the realization of its mission. Team Shakespeare supports education in our schools, where Shakespeare is Resources part of every required curriculum. As a theater within a multicultural city, Before You Read the Play 36 we are committed to bringing Shakespeare to a young and diverse audi- As You Read the Play 46 ence of 40,000 students each year. Team Shakespeare’s programming After You Read the Play 53 includes free teacher workshops, student matinees of main stage shows, The Performance: Preparing and Reflecting 60 post-performance discussions, comprehensive teacher handbooks, and Strategies for Using Film to an abridged, original production each year of one of the “curriculum Teach Shakespeare 68 plays.” Team Shakespeare offers a region-wide forum for new vision and Theater Warm-ups 77 enthusiasm for teaching Shakespeare in our schools. In 2012, the Fol- Techno Shakespeare 82 ger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, honored that vision with the Suggested Readings 87 prestigious Shakespeare Steward Award. The 2013-14 Season offers a student matinee series for three of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s full- Acknowledgments length productions: in the fall semester, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond This Teacher Handbook grew out of a team effort of teachers Rostand; and in the spring, Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor past and present, Chicago Shakespeare Theater artists, interns, and Henry V. Also this spring, a 75-minute abridged version of A Midsum- educators, and scholars. Interns Alana Tomlin, Katherine Horstkotte mer Night’s Dream will be performed at the Theater on Navy Pier and will and Rebecca Dumain revised and updated a previous edition of tour to schools and theaters across the region. We hope that you and your Henry V handbook for this production. Chicago Shakespeare students will enjoy our work—and Shakespeare’s creative genius brought Theater gratefully acknowledges the groundbreaking and indelible work of Dr. Rex Gibson and the Cambridge School Shakespeare to life on stage. Series, and The Folger Shakespeare Institute, whose contributions to the field of teaching have helped shape our own work through Marilyn J Halperin Director of Education, Ray and Judy McCaskey Education Chair the years. Jason Harrington Education Outreach Manager ©2014, Chicago Shakespeare Theater Molly Topper Learning Programs Manager WRITTEN BY William Shakespeare DIRECTED BY Christopher Luscombe King Henry must defeat the reputation of his reckless youth Wielding the power of words as a balm, he leads his country into war Two countries and room for only one victor in battle The French and English will fight to the death Shakespeare’s Henry V transcends historical fact to explore the requisites of great leaders in troubled times It is a story of the heavy weight of majesty Of the glory and agony of war, of heroic patriotism and the ruthless underbelly of politics, of our human capacity for friendship and destruction It is also a story of the inadequacies and miracles of staged drama, of the roles we all play and the scenes we all set And it is a story, too, of the power of language and our imagination A battle-fuelled tale ensues, of a man and a king—and the very private anxieties of being either one ✷ Photo by Bill Burlingham Harry Judge as Henry V in CST’s 2014 production of Henry V, directed by Christopher Luscombe Art That Lives rama is a living art. It is written How can you help us give you to be performed live before a the best performance we can? Dgroup of people who form an audience and together experience a ✷ Please, no talking during the performance It dis- play. Cave paintings depicting men tracts the actors as well as the people sitting nearby. disguised as animals reveal that since ancient times, impersonation and ✷ Respond naturally to our play Emotions are part of imitation have served humans in their drama. We hope that you’ll laugh, cry and even gasp— efforts to express themselves and to but as a natural response to the story, and not in order communicate. The drama of western civilization has its roots in to distract attention from the stage. the ancient Greeks’ religious rituals and observances. ✷ Please leave all “noisemakers”—food, gum, cell Until the Renaissance, when Shakespeare wrote, drama was phones, iPods, etc.—back at school or on the bus closely tied to religious beliefs and practice. Drama not only In a quiet theater, wrappers and munching are heard by depicts human communication, it is human communication. In all, the actors included. theater, unlike television or film, there is a two-way communica- tion that occurs between the actors and their audience. The ✷ No photographs of any kind, please Flashbulbs audience hears and sees the actors, and the actors hear and can make the actors lose their focus and can be dan- see the audience. We are used to thinking about the actors’ gerous. Digital cameras, along with all other kinds of roles in a play, but may find it strange to imagine ourselves, the recording devices, are prohibited, as is text-messaging. audience, playing an important role in this living art. Because the art lives, each production is guaranteed to be different, de- pending in part upon an audience’s response. Live drama is the sharing of human experience, intensely and immediately, in Bard’s Bio the theater, which momentarily becomes our universe. he exact date of William Shakespeare’s birth is not A live theater production depends upon its audience. The best Tknown, but his baptism, tra- performances depend upon the best actors—and the best ditionally three days after a child’s audiences. When the actors sense a responsive, interested birth, was recorded on April 26, audience, their work is at its best—full of animation and energy. 1564. His father John Shakespeare When the actors sense disinterest, they too are distracted and was a tanner, glover, grain dealer and the play they create is less interesting. One actor described prominent town official of the thriving the experience of live performance as a story told by the actors market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. and audience together. In this sense, you are also a storyteller His mother Mary Arden was the daughter of a prosperous, in the experience of live theater. We hope you’ll enjoy your educated farmer. Though the records are lost, Shakespeare role—and will help us to give you a dramatic experience that undoubtedly attended Stratford’s grammar school, where he you’ll always remember. would have acquired some knowledge of Latin and Greek and the classical writers. There is no record that Shakespeare [Theatrical performance] is essentially a sociable, com- acquired a university education of any kind. Some skeptical munal affair. This is important. To resist this is, I think, scholars have raised doubts about whether Shakespeare, due to ruin one of the very important parts of the theatrical to his relatively average level of education and humble origins, experience. Let the play and let the fact that temporarily could have possibly written what has long been considered you are not your private self, but a member of a closely the best verse drama composed in the English language. fused group, make it easy for the performance to ‘take But not until 1769, 150 years after Shakespeare’s death, did you out of yourself.’ This, I suggest, is the object of go- these theories arise—and, to all appearances, Shakespeare’s ing to a play…to be taken out of yourself, out of your contemporaries and immediate successors never seemed to ordinary life, away from the ordinary world of everyday.