WORKING SHAKESPEARE:
The Complete Set
(5 workshop set and 2 workbooks)
“A BARD-TASTIC collection! A thorough master class to maximum understanding and expressiveness….Follow along, do the breathing and vocal exercises, and you’ll feel an increasing resonance in your speaking voice, and Shakespeare will make you want to read—nay, declaim forcefully—Bard hits.”—Entertainment Weekly.
“21 high-profile veterans of stage and screen on a mission to brush up their Shakespeare with fabled RSC voice director. A real workout homing in on the use of language, vocal preparation, movement all the hidden aspects of reading and performing Shakesepare….And you don’t have to be an aspiring actor to appreciate these workshops. They have much to offer any theatergoer who wants a real understanding of the plays.”—Chicago Sun-Times
“Adrenaline flowed freely as the actors pitched into Ms. Berry’s vocal and physical exercises….She guided the actors into becoming a combined force exploring the drama of language.”—The New York Times
"If you love theater but secretly sleep through Shakespeare, then WORKING SHAKESPEARE just might open your eyes to what you've been missing. This new blockbuster, entertaining as well as educational, is great fun to watch with wonderful insights into one of the greatest poets of the English language. Grade: A"
—Christian Science Monitor
The landmark five-part video series gives voice to Shakespeare's most beloved and widely known speeches and sonnets performed by a powerhouse ensemble of American and British actors, as they delve into the structure, meaning and power of Shakespeare's language. Aimed at students of literature and theatre arts, each video explores a different aspect of Shakespeare's work.
How do we enter the heightened, extravagant language of Shakespeare and yet feel truthful in today's world? How do performers excite the audience with Shakespeare's rich imagery and dynamic rhythm and yet make it real for the twenty-first century? We assume that a sophisticated intellectual background is required to grapple with Shakespeare. But there is a much deeper, almost primal response, as available to inner city students as to their counterparts in the private school, to the sound and rhythm in Shakespeare's language that arouses our emotions—feelings of anger and sorrow, of passion and laughter.
| Witness the highest-caliber English and American actors—well-known for their award-winning movie roles—working together, finding the strength and joy in Shakespeare's language, its elegance as well as its coarseness, its passion and its humor. Students are certain to be inspired by the courage of these performers, many of whom had little or no experience with Shakespeare prior to this workshop, as they take daring risks on the spot, experimenting with fresh approaches to classic texts. These totally unrehearsed workshops are sure to enthuse young people with an active curiosity in our greatest dramatist and make them want to speak Shakespeare themselves, and make his language their own.
Texts are supplied onscreen as well as in Cicely Berry's teacher's manual to the set. Cicely Berry, director of voice of the Royal Shakespeare Company, has developed her approach in schools and community groups in the States and Great Britain and with students as far apart as Brazil and China. “In all the exercises we find physical ways to help unlock the actor's innate response to the text, and to help us find new meanings. " —CICELY BERRY, VOICE DIRECTOR THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY |
“Adrenaline flowed freely as the actors pitched into Ms. Berry's vocal and physical exercises. Using diverse Shakespearean scenes and sonnets, she and her associate, Andrew Wade, guided the actors into becoming 'a combined force' exploring the drama of language ... When the three-day workshop ended, the actors seemed as closely bonded as if they had shared summer camp or an ocean voyage.” —MEL GUSSOW, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Shakespeare texts used during the exercises are supplied on screen for classroom use as well as in Cicely Berry's teacher's manual.
Workshop One: Muscularity of Language: Motion and Rhythm
Workshop Two: Under the Text: Subtext and the World of the Play
Workshop Three: Prose and Verse Texts: Language and Imagery Reveal the Character's Inner Landscape
Workshop Four: The Whole Voice: Its Sound and Range
Workshop Five: The Voice Preparation Workshop
Save $150 over the individual editions and book!
Set of All 5 DVD Workshops
Includes FREE Cicely Berry's Workbook to the Series ($24.95 value)
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