Midsummer Night's Dream Study Guide

Objectives:

1. For students to explore the meaning of important speeches and scenes through drama and paraphrase.

2. For students to explore the dramatic importance of specific events in the play.

3. For students to explore character through costume and "trying on" (alternately - costume design sketches)

4. For students to learn to read Shakespearean lines with meaning and fluidity.

5. For students to relate the play to their own lives and language.

6. For students to experience the fun of Shakespeare.

7. For students to learn to use the digital camera.

8. For students to practice using iMovie, PowerPoint or other presentation software as a multimedia presentation tool.

Overview:

Students will be given "parts" in the play, characters upon which to focus. Each character will be costumed in 2 ways:  for Elizabethan performance, and for a "modern" day performance.  Core scenes and speeches will be selected and the lines paraphrased by the actors  into contemporary language.   A series of "tableaus" will be photographed to illustrate the core scenes, each posed in both Elizabethan and contemporary costume.  Students will be recorded reading both the actual lines and the paraphrased lines to accompany each scene.   Photographs, with accompanying sound, will be combined into a side-by-side PowerPoint presentation of the story of the play or in an iMovie with sequential "takes".

Details:

1. Day 1: "Cast" the play and explain the overview and goals of the project.  Discuss costume and set a deadline for students to provide 2 costumes for each role.

2. Day 2: Assign each student or group to locate at least 8 essential short speeches or parts of speeches for his/her character - these should cover the entire play and be central to the action in the related scene.

3. Day 3:  Working in groups of actors who are in the same scene(s), arrive at a consensus of core scenes to make into tableaus.

4. Day 4:  Assign students specific lines to "rehearse" and paraphrase.  Practice reading the Shakespeare and edit the scene/line choices to create a fluid presentation of the story.  Limit recording time to 3 minutes to save disk space.

5. Day 5: Practice reading the paraphrased lines and edit as necessary.

6. Day 6:  In costume, pose and photograph or film first the Shakespearean tableau, then the contemporary tableaus.  Actors should be in the same positions and setting for both!

7. Day 7-9:  In a quiet and controlled setting, record the narration for each scene.

8. Finish:  Create the PowerPoint presentation or iMovie.  Presentations can be saved as .html and posted to the Internet, digitized and transferred to video tape, or saved to disk or CD ROM.

Alternate Method: Puppets

The costuming and shooting for one or both versions of the play can be done inside, on a stick-puppet stage or full-sized puppet stage.  Have students draw their characters after the costume discussion and, in the most simple production, attach the drawings to popsicle sticks!  A competition can be held for set design:   Theseus' palace and the forest.  Sets can be taped to a plain backdrop and stick puppets photographed in tableau. 

This is the method I used with my class one year, combined with modern dress photos.  We had to accommodate weather!  The advantage to the puppet method was the stress it placed on the recorded and translated lines.  I found that the drawing challenge focused more upon the students' understanding of the play. But I think that this would also have been the case if we had been able to photograph  costumed scenes.

Least Tern

Elizabeth Sky-McIlvain