Acting Shakespeare: Interactive Acting Workshop for High School Students

Acting Shakespeare:  

Interactive Acting Workshop for High School Students

Wednesday, April 27, 4-6pm

Free event. Registration required.

Celebrate Shakespeare with a prepared soliloquy, speech, or two-person scene from Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, or As You Like It. Participants should choose something which engages them passionately and have the work well enough in hand (memorized if possible) in order to explore the text in a playful, workshop atmosphere.  (A soliloquy or speech should be roughly 1-minute long and scenes approximately 5 minutes.) Bring your script and courage to grapple with the Bard.  No prior experience is expected.  

Registration is extremely limited. A few spectator seats will be available.

Facilitator: Terryl Hallquist, Associate Professor of Theatre, Vanderbilt University.

Terryl Hallquist has directed well over 80 plays at Vanderbilt University and is especially proud of her productions of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, The Tempest, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing. Each spring she teaches a course in the Theatre Department entitled:  Shakespeare in the Theatre.

Decoding the Bard: Shakespeare for the Thoroughly Intimidated

Decoding the Bard: 

Shakespeare for the Thoroughly Intimidated

Grade 9 through adult

Tuesday, April 26, 6-7:50pm

Free class. Registration required.

If you have ever had trouble understanding Shakespeare’s language, this is the workshop for you.  Instructor Rowena Aldrige enjoys the process of helping people become comfortable and even cozy with the Bard.  In this workshop, she’ll show you ways to understand Shakespeare’s use of language - vocabulary, sentence structure, use of verse, tone words, etc. - then show you how to put those new skills to use on a few specific speeches or acts.  Sign up and conquer your fear of Shakespeare! 

Rowena Aldridge is a former professional ballerina. costume designer, and stage manager, who now spends her days homeschooling and homemaking.  For 12 years she was the Senior Teaching Artist for dance for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, doing multiple 3- to 6-week residencies in Aesthetic Education each year in the Metro Nashville Public Schools.  For the past four years she has lead homeschool enrichment programs in science, history, art, and home economics in a studio she and her family built in their backyard, as well as teaching classic literature at WEB Homeschool Tutorial in East Nashville.  She is a certified educator in a number of old-school domestic skills, including food preservation (University of Georgia Extension), small space gardening (Square Foot Gardening Foundation), and patternmaking for sewing (Wild Ginger Software, Inc). She is the co-author of "Digital Flat Pattern", the only college-level textbook on digital pattern drafting for the fashion industry. Her writing has appeared in numerous periodicals and she is the author of the devotional "An Everyday Advent: Meditations from the Heart of a Homemaker".  Her underlying passion is empowering others to go out and conquer the world on their own terms.  

Mask Making for Adults

Mask Making for Adults

Tuesday, April 26, 1-2:15pm

Free class. Registration required.

All materials provided (photo for illustration purposes only). 

Masques (courtly entertainment featuring masked players) was popular in 16^th- and 17^th-century England. The Renaissance also saw the expanse of masks to elaborate masquerade balls, eventually extending to from court affairs to upper society events to semi-public festivities. In this class, we’ll have some fun making our own masks. Registration required.

Mask Making for Teens

 Mask Making for Teens

Monday, April 25, 4-5pm

Free class. All materials included.

Registration required.

Instructor: Kersten Fons.

Masques (courtly entertainment featuring masked players) was popular in 16th- and 17th-century England. The Renaissance also saw the expanse of masks to elaborate masquerade balls, eventually extending from court affairs to upper society events to semi-public festivities. In this class, we’ll have some fun making our own masks.