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Shakespeare teaching ideas Fun Shakespeare Stuff

Family Reunion Readers Theater

Readers Theater is always a fun time, and even more so with my melodramatic stories which are short and funny. But, they are even funnier with a family reunion. As we all know who the hams are in our families, don’t we? This past holiday season, when our family came together for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas,…

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Shakespeare teaching ideas Shakespeare Lesson Plans Fun Shakespeare Stuff

Shakespearean Tragedy Bingo

Ok, let’s start with, I didn’t make this… but, it’s pretty darn cool! (credit to Mya Gosling) Shakespearean Tragedy Bingo.  My first thought was, it’s going to be a pretty long game.  But, my second thought was to actually make this into a game.  Have all the different scenes that relate to the squares put…

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Jungle Book

25 Facts about The Jungle Book

In order to celebrate the launch of my 13th book, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book for Kids, I put together a little “Did you know?” page.  It’s different things we learned along the path of creating this melodramatic 15 minute play from the original works of Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Enjoy! DID YOU KNOW? 1)…

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Performing Shakespeare for kids

Yorick the Break Dancer (Yo-Rick!)

In my most recent direction of my Hamlet for Kids there came the moment when the young actor comes on stage and says the line, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him. When I was a kid, he was the jester, the funniest guy I knew.” And the play moves on… but, this one kid, as he…

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Shakespeare teaching ideas Performing Shakespeare for kids

Death Auditions – Give me your best Death!

I recently coached a parent who was running an after-school program, and she asked me how I do the “death auditions” for my plays.  It made me realize that I haven’t done a simple quick layout of my first day for a while, so, here it is: 1) I do a 5-8 minute, melodramatic solo performance…

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Shakespeare in the world

The Merchant IN Venice!

That’s right, I said “IN”, the Merchant IN Venice! Read below from one of our guest bloggers about a rare opportunity… I have always wondered how it would be to see Shakespeare’s characters in the places which the Bard himself thought for them, how it would be to see Lorenzo wooing Jessica outside a Venetian…

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Performing Shakespeare for kids

Hamming it up with Hamlet for Kids

I just finished a five-week afterschool program doing Hamlet for Kids the melodramatic version. So, I thought I would list a few pointers to make this particular class more fun and melodramatic for you and your kids. First of all, the funniest part of the entire play is the last scene, everybody dies onstage, every…

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Uncategorized

Supplies for Teachers

Money is not easy to come by for teachers. But, filling out a simple form for some kids in need, is!!!  This link was sent to me, from the Kids in Need Foundation, and I want to pass it on to all the teachers – so please share! Supply a teacher So, if you know…

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Shakespeare teaching ideas Performing Shakespeare for kids

Why Shakespeare Tragedies are funnier than Comedies

Ok, this is a short little post about a great little document that I found. Full credit to Cam Magee, and he summarizes this best: Everybody dies.  And THAT is why tragedies are funnier than comedies, when performed by kids melodramatically!  From the data I have collected (watching kids perform) ALL kids LOVE to die…

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Shakespeare teaching ideas Shakespeare Lesson Plans

Classroom Insult-a-thon

Classroom Insult-a-thon (Don’t forget, April 23rd is National Insult Like Shakespeare Day!) It’s simple and fun and works like this: Everyone writes up 3-4 different insults using the Shakespeare Insult Generator They spend about 5-10 minutes practicing their insults, working on generating the appropriate delivery with angst! Split the class into 2 groups that line…

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