In Andrea McCormick’s Shakespeare: The Musical residency, students will take a play from Shakespeare and incorporate it with music and dance. Students will be encouraged to analyze selections from the script, find the rhythmic patterns in the writing, and work them into song as either a melody or rap, with movement or dance. As an added reinforcement of comprehension, students will be asked to rewrite selections from the script in current English to create a new, abridged musical version of the play.
Langston Hughes: Dream Keeper, Poem Maker
This assembly program shows the range of Hughes’ styles and themes through poetry, song, and movement. The students will perform the poems, helping the students discover their own dreams, how those dreams can be deferred and how, ultimately, they can be fulfilled. The principal texts are from “The Dream Keeper” and other poems, illustrated by Brian Pickney. Additional texts include poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Sam Allen, and Eloise Greenfield, as well as song lyrics by Sam Cook and Curtis Mayfield.
A writing workshop includes two to three writing prompts based upon Langston’s poems “Dream,” “Poem,” and “Motto.” The workshop can be offered as a stand-alone workshop, or a post-assembly workshop.
Our Branches of Government: A Theatre Residency
Cultivate a deeper understanding of the three branches of government and how they interact with each other through a system of checks and balances over the course of this 4-day residency. Students draft and devise a short script which will serve as their “bill” or a new piece of legislation. The students will work in groups that represent the different roles in the creative process and these roles will correlate with a different branch. The program will culminate in a performance of the script and a mini press conference to summarize the process and experience.
Ma’at is Missing: Deciphering Manners
What happened to the Golden Rule? This one-actor performance demonstrates to children and families the important role manners and kindness play in how we relate to the people around us. Through theatrical spectacle, including magic, storytelling, music, dance, and hieroglyphics, the performer guides the audience in finding clues to the lost Temple of Ma’at, dedicated to the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, and civility.
Complementary workshops exploring Egyptian hieroglyphics and the ancient art form, Frontalism, are available to accompany a performance. This program is best suited for children ages 4-12 and families.
Shaking Up Shakespeare
“All the Worlds a Stage” in this stimulating workshop/residency, students will perform excerpts from some of Shakespeare’s best-known works from ‘Romeo & Juliet’ to ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’. The performance will deepen their understanding of the text by allowing students to “mashup” Shakespearian acting with dance, movement, rap, music and other current art forms.
Dancer and choreographer Lisa Yanofsky will actively engage students with Shakespeare’s text, characters and plot through a series of theater and dance activities which will help students connect with the meaning and meter of the text. Students will gain ownership of the Bard’s words as they reinterpret the plays and set them in a modern day high school context.
This workshop can be customized based on what Shakespearean work the students have read. Recommended works include: Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Living Portraits
Performer and choreographer Lisa Yanofsky will lead students through the creation and performance of an original scene that explores the identities of historical or literary figures. Drawing from topics the students have already studied or from works of fiction the students have already read, Lisa will guide students’ exploration of character identities using movement, dialogue, monologue, and music. Students will choose a character or historical figure and draw from their life, context, personality and actions to craft and perform as their character in a “living portrait”.
The residency begins with exercises in writing. Students will be asked to pull text from the novel, if they are playing a fictional character, or quotes from the historical figure, if they are playing a non-fiction character. From the gathered source material, students will extrapolate personality, opinions, context and emotions and use these to write from the point of view of their character. Using their writing and research as a foundation, students will work together to help each other create movement for their character. Throughout the process of creating the movement and text, Lisa will act as a director, fitting the pieces of each character’s arc together and guiding collaboration between students. Depending on student interest, the “living portraits” can be performed with music or original songs or raps that give more information on the figure.
To Be an American
History comes alive as women step out of the past to share their stories of the successes and challenges that earned them the right to be in our history books. This unique approach to learning has been designed to enhance the State of Ohio social studies curriculum and support the achievement of proficiency expectations for students of all ages. Each portrayal has been carefully and extensively researched to insure an accurate depiction of the total personality. WIH will provide personalized activities to enhance the experience with a particular character.
All American Heroes
With the help of Women in History, students will step into the shoes of a historical figure and give voice to the person’s story and placement in America’s history books. Each student will be responsible for selecting a historical figure based on specific guidelines. Each will complete in-depth research by accumulating material utilizing both primary and secondary sources to develop a three to five minute characterization to be presented to a live audience. Students will demonstrate utilization of individual historical thinking skills and an understanding of human systems influenced by historical events.
Character, Conflict, Action! – A Playwriting Workshop
Reading and writing plays is motivating to students of all abilities. Writing and performing your own play not only gives students experience with dialogue and action but also develops reading and writing fluency and confidence. Play writing also helps students break out of the habit of writing fast summaries of their stories instead of real “showing writing,” including scene and character development. Students will learn how character and conflict interact to create drama in a short play. LEI will lead students through the writing process, from developing a main character and dramatic conflict, through complicating the conflict with other obstacles, to resolving the play as a tragedy or comedy. Students will learn the basic elements of play writing including dialogue and stage directions and may perform their play at the end of the project.
Lake Erie Ink also offers play writing adaptation workshops of fairy tales, folk tales, and myths or can create a customized program to provide experience and understanding of a variety of fictional genres.
What’s Inside a Story: Structure and Key Details
Students are invited to sing, mime, chant, and then analyze how characters, setting, and the beginning-middle-end of stories relate to the whole. With handcrafted puppets, guitar, sound effects and movement, students explore a West Indian folktale, a wide mouth frog adventure and echo songs rich in rhythm and rhyme.
PLAY, then WRITE
Dramatic Activities to Facilitate the Pre-Writing Process: This workshop provides theatrical tools to help all kinds of learners write. Examine ways to physicalize literary structure, bring it to life, and translate that physicality onto the page with graphic organizers to help students play, then write!
Gesture Communication
This workshop is designed to improve non-verbal communication skills. Students participate in exercises that increase the use of body language and facial expressions when communicating thoughts and feelings through gesture, mime, and improvisation techniques.