Dress Rehearsal

A tea party in Wonderland? An East Egg brunch with Gatsby, Daisy, Tom, and Nick? Breakfast with Miss Havisham, Lady Macbeth, and Abigail Williams? Or dinner with Andre, Hamlet, and Randle Patrick McMurphy? Class members select a favorite...

Your intermediate or advanced thespians choose dramatic scenes to perform in duos, small groups, or solo to demonstrate vocal and physical characterization. Use class time to prepare and rehearse. Detailed rubrics work for peer assessment.

“All the world’s a stage…” What do Leonardo DiCaprio, Heath Ledger, and Kenneth Branagh have in common? They have all starred in modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. After viewing a series clips from modern Shakespeare videos,...

Students use an online chart to match the character traits of a character in a book they are reading with specific actions the character takes. Students then work in pairs to "become" one of the major characters in a book and describe...

Film imitates life; that's what they say. Using performance theory to tie the lesson together, learners attempt to understand memory and daily rituals as seen in art, film, and life. They read two chapters from the book, watch the...

Partners choose, research, and analyze fictional or historical characters and design character life boxes to represent them. They also compose a rhyme royal, which they understand inductively by deconstructing examples. Based largely on...

Learners closely read " To Build a Fire," to explore the use of narrative point of view and debate the distinction between knowledge and instinct. The elements of literary naturalism and how they relate to Jack London's work is examined...

Develop a mystery character using clues from a bag. This engaging activity will help learners understand character traits. They develop a list of the items from the bag, discuss and develop the character with a partner, and create a...

From mystery plays to Shakespeare! Progress chronologically through the evolution of English drama, which began as a way for English clergymen in the eleventh century to illustrate biblical stories to the mass of illiterate commoners....

In pairs learners perform a silent skit portraying relationships between two known characters from a popular book or a play for their classmates. Next, the class will read and discuss a NYTimes article about a film school in the Bronx...