Much Ado About Nothing: A teacher's guide

View Resource

Remix and Share

Author:

Amelia Wade, Carla Lerner, Carrie Foster, Cathleen Sheehan, Claire Parker, Jenna Stich, Mirabelle Korn, Philippa Kelly, Trish Tillman, Vince Rodriguez

Subject:

Arts

Institution Name:

California Shakespeare Theater

Collection:

Individual Authors

Grade Level:

Primary, Secondary

Abstract:

This teacher’s guide, Much Ado About Nothing: Word! is intended to help guide students through this particular thicket of playful language that Shakespeare employs here. It has been posited that language is the primary tool through which we construct our own reality, and the characters are certainly lying, pretending, manipulating, and delighting all through the use of words in order to get what they want. An easy way to understand even complicated language such as this is to see language as action – as powerful and with as palpable an effect as physical movement.
An actor is always using the text to look for “why”. Why does a character do what he does, and how does the language give us clues? For an actor, each sentence a character utters is to advance the character’s own concept of who they are and what they want. For a writer, arguably each sentence a character utters is to express what the writer would like the audience to know about the character. Cal Shakes provides a fresh approach to make these old words come alive again in the context of our modern lives.

Material Type:

Activities and Labs, Curriculum Standards, Games, Teaching and Learning Strategies

Media Format:

Downloadable docs

Conditions of Use:

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0

Copyright Holder:

California Shakespeare Theater