This class will outline the tools and techniques of Shakespearean acting such as projection, articulation, and imagination. Each class will start with the students practicing vocal warmups with the teacher, and continue with a close reading/ slides presentation of a Shakespearean text. The course will culminate with the teacher assigning each student a monologue that they will deliver in class and can use in future auditions or drama classes. Previous knowledge of Shakespeare is helpful, but not required.
Class Outline: 

Class #1:  What does it take to Act Shakespeare? 
This class will outline the tools and techniques of Shakespearean acting such as projection, articulation, and imagination. We’ll also go over Shakespeare’s own advice on acting in his play “Hamlet: Prince of Denmark.”

Class 2: Audition Advice: We’ll cover practical tricks and tips to bring to your next Shakespeare audition.

Class 3: Acting in Shakespeare's Day
We’ll travel back in time with a multimedia presentation of Shakespeare's London, and see and hear the differences between Elizabethan theater and ours.

Class 4: Shakespeare’s Peculiar Language Verse and Rhetoric 
Shakespeare's language often intimidates young actors, but with a quick crash course, you'll learn how to use Shakespeare's verse to understand your character. You'll also use rhetoric, (the art of public speaking) to convey ideas powerfully and clearly.

Class 5: Shakespeare’s Clowns- 
Put on your red nose and get out your joke book. We'll read speeches from Shakespeare's merry menagerie of clowns like Feste, Falstaff, and the celebrated Fool in "King Lear".

Class 6: Shakespeare’s Villains- 
From Richard III to Macbeth, Shakespeare has written some of the most deliciously diabolical villains in the history of Western theater. By analyzing their speeches, students will learn how these villains plot and brood and make the audience complicit in their schemes.

Class 7: How to deliver a Shakespearean Monologue
Students will get to choose a Shakespeare monologue to work on in class, whether comic or tragic. We will go through the character's motivation, given circumstances, and the hidden clues Shakespeare puts in his verse as to the character's emotional journey.

Class 8: Scene work
We will briefly shift from monologues to scenes from Shakespearean plays, (whether one on one or three-person scenes). The teacher will help the students make the scene dynamic and get the characters to fight for their objectives.

Class 9: Final Project/ critique 
Students will deliver their chosen monologue which the teacher will annotate with notes on character, motivation, verse, and rhetoric. They can then use these monologues for auditions, drama classes, or high school Shakespeare competitions. The teacher will also provide each student with a list of resources on Shakespearean acting and wish them luck in their future endeavors.