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Your classroom is already a stage.

As the melancholy, philosophical Jaques says in As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances…

On your little stage, much happens that only you will see and hear. Every morning, the players enter; every afternoon, they exit. Every day you see all sorts of performances, scenes, and stories being played out. You meet all sorts of characters you will never forget. That is one of the joys of teaching, especially at the elementary level.

So, in a sense, the transition to working on Shakespeare may not be as complicated as one might think!

In previous sections, we have talked about finding a regular “Shakespeare time” each week, and about clarifying your vision for what you want students to get out of the experience. Let’s say, for the sake of moving onwards, that you have done this, or are at least in the process of doing so.

Now, as you prepare for the leap of bringing Jaques’ theatrical metaphor to life within your room, here are ten things to consider – a pre-journey checklist of sorts:

1. Where will your playing space be within the classroom? What will the class procedures be when making the transition to working in this playing space?
2. Where and when do you want to do your final performance? If not in your classroom, is the space available for the date(s) you have chosen? Have you put the performance on the school’s master calendar?
3. Do you have an introductory letter or handout for parents, explaining the value and the demands of the educational journey their children will soon be undertaking?
4. What plays, scenes, or sections of scenes will your class explore and perform? How familiar are you with these texts? Do you have class sets of copies for these scenes or pieces ready to go?
5. At what point in the process will you shift from group exploration and exercises to actually working on a specific play or scene, with assigned roles? What will your criteria be for making the role assignments?
6. Are there any extra materials available to you from the school library, or the public library, or inter-library loan, for supplemental use in the classroom?
7. Are there any field trips you can possibly take to area Shakespeare festivals or stages? Are there any upcoming Shakespeare performances in your community?
8. Are there any guest speakers – local performers or professors – who might bring something special and Shakespeare-related on a classroom visit?
9. Have you begun to form alliances within the school to support this project – with the librarian, the curriculum specialists, the administration, and, most importantly, your next-door-neighbors?
10. Do you know the “essential knowledge and skills” you want to focus on in your lesson plans?

Some of these questions will gradually resolve themselves – such as the class performing space.

Sometimes the stage is an area in the front, where the carpet is. Other times it is an “empty space” created by moving desks apart. You might even have an actual platform in your room. It’s interesting to let the students work on this as a measurement and design problem!

There will be moments of serendipity along the way; you will change course several times. But as this is new terrain for most of you, it’s better to be over-prepared. Theater director Peter Brook tells a story of the time when he spent weeks preparing for the first meeting of the acting company for a Shakespeare play he was directing. Brook had worked out all the movement of the actors in advance, using a little model of the stage.

But when he met the actors for the first time, he suddenly tossed out all his pre-planned moves and began to explore the play openly with the performers. The extensive preparation had made him feel free enough to improvise and experiment, and the work became much richer and more interesting as a result.