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Field Trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival: Midsummer and J. Caesar

October 18, 2009 By 1 Comment

caesar_lgLast week our English Department took a bus load of students to Stratford, Ontario for an afternoon performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and an evening performance of Julius Caesar. This was our fourth trip in the last three seasons, previously introducing our students to performances of King Lear, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Macbeth.

Once again we stayed at a downtown hotel, and once again the trip went wonderfully. This annual field trip is one of the best opportunities for high school students to enjoy a fun, educational experience and has led to a Shakespearean-Renaissance at our school. The drama club is thriving and has been putting on productions of plays based on Shakespeare’s works, and the Shakespeare units are generating the most interest and excitement in our English courses.

What worked well … Superb acting!

While all of the positive things that I mentioned last year continue to ring true (location, price, an optional trip, and relevant texts), this trip really highlighted the excellent acting that we continue to enjoy at Stratford. Some highlights:

  • Ben Carlson: What can I say? Ever since we saw him in Hamlet, our school has been a big fan. This time he made an excellent Brutus; so into his role that, from the audience, we could see the wheels turning as he considered necessary action.
  • Tom Rooney: While the students loved his role as Puck, I was especially impressed with him as Cassius (which in itself highlights his versatility). This was the first time, for me, that Cassius seemed calculating, persuasive, and human, and not simply a lean, hungry, sinister, Alan Rickman-like bad guy.
  • Michael Spencer-Davis: A perfect Casca.
  • Cara Ricketts: A perfect Portia and the best Hippolyta to date. Lots of fire.
  • Yanna McIntosh: Wow! Wow! and Wow! She was the highlight of Macbeth in the Spring, and she was one of the greatest highlights again on this trip. As Titania in the afternoon and as Calpurnia in the evening, she gave such bold, solid performances.
  • Geraint Wyn Davies: Wonderful! Nick Bottom in the afternoon, making me laugh at his every turn, and Julius Caesar in the evening, holding the audience in awe. Finally a Caesar strong enough to be a ruler, strong enough to be stabbed by all of the conspirators before falling, and only succumbing because of the pain of Brutus’ betrayal.

What needs work

  • If you read my blog post about Macbeth in the Spring, you know that I’ve been disappointed with some of the ‘bells, gongs, and buzzers’… more cameras and TV screens?! more helicopter sounds?! costuming that spans 2000 years?! Please, please, please… just give us some classic Shakespeare for a change. If William Shakespeare really is timeless, if he really is for all ages, then we don’t need these extra gimmicks.
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Lesson Debrief: Creating Julius Caesar audio files

April 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Last week saw the end of my Grad 9 applied unit themed “lost worlds.” I will miss the talk about myth, legend, and historical fiction. I will miss the ghosts of Beowulf, Arthur, and Caesar haunting Room 203.

Of the many highlights, the one that will likely stay with me for a while will be the audio tracks that students created from scenes from Julius Caesar. In self-created groups of five or less, students used Audacity to record their dramatic reading (with sound effects) of a scene assigned to them. They had to choose a genre to create the reading.

Some of the interesting scenes included:

  • Calpurnia’s plea to keep Caesar from the Capitol in a Star Wars genre
  • the conspirators with Brutus in a mafia genre
  • the murder scene in a Transformers genre

Students practiced in class several times before we moved to the lab for recording (this took about three classes to complete.)

What worked well:

  • Students had fun listening to their own production — almost too much fun, as it was sometimes hard to encourage them to move on to the next few lines.
  • By creating their own audio recordings, students learned a lot about sound effects and how they add to a story’s interpretation.
  • Audacity is getting easier for me to use all of the time. Next time I’m sure I’ll be able to get students started sooner and using it easily.

What needs work:

  • Time, time, time. Audacity was a new program for them, and it took students a long time just to learn the software. I’m glad that they’ve had the experience, but when I think of the time that it took to do that and then look at all of the curriculum expectations that need to be met before June, I wonder about the time investment.

But even so, I think it was worth the time required. I think I’ll use this again in the future.

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