RSC Education Workshops & Performances Set For Park Avenue Armory

Eight hundred young people aged between 8 and 14 from underserved communities from New York will get the opportunity to experience Shakespeare by attending the Royal Shakespeare Company's Young People's Shakespeare productions of Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors at Park Avenue Armory.

Together with workshops for teachers and teaching artists, the productions form part of the education program created by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Park Avenue Armory's education department. This program is a key part of the RSC's six-week residency in New York, a co-presentation by Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory in association with The Ohio State University in which the RSC will present five Shakespeare plays between July 6 and August 14. The education program complements the RSC's main productions from July 14 to August 2 and will involve the same RSC actors, RSC education practitioners and the Armory's corps of teaching artists.

The program has been inspired by the RSC's Stand up for Shakespeare manifesto and developed by the RSC and Park Avenue Armory in consultation with The Ohio State University, the New York City Department of Education and Lincoln Center Festival. It provides opportunities for children aged eight years and upwards to enjoy their first taste of Shakespeare by seeing adapted versions of the plays in performance, and aims to develop the skills of teachers and teaching artists to get children and young people up on their feet, exploring the plays actively, as actors do.

It includes:
RSC Young People's Shakespeare productions of Hamlet and Comedy of Errors and Park Avenue Armory workshops for young people

Hamlet is directed by Miami-born playwright and director Tarell Alvin McCraney with Dharmesh Patel in the title role. With a running time of seventy minutes, it is accessible for audiences from eight years of age.

The Comedy of Errors, directed by Paul Hunter and produced in association with ground-breaking British theatre company Told by An Idiot, is a high energy version of the play using music and physical comedy to engage children and family audiences.

Both shows have been seen by thousands of young people in schools in the UK and were part of the re-opening season at the RSC's newly transformed Stratford home.

Park Avenue Armory has invited children from New York City's summer learning programs to enjoy these performances this summer and to take part in educational workshops before and after the performances. Among the participating organizations are Church Avenue Merchants Block Association (CAMBA), The After School Corporation (TASC), and St. Nicks Alliance School Settlement Association. Students from the Boys and Girls Club and PS 226 District 75 School in Manhattan will participate as well.

The educational workshops developed by Park Avenue Armory and the RSC have been custom-designed to prepare the students for their first exposure to a Shakespeare play and to help them assess and contextualize what they have experienced. Each student will participate in three workshops led by the Armory's teaching artists. The first workshop will provide an introduction to Shakespeare's language and the theater of his day. The second will take place with a pre-performance session highlighting the major plot points of the story the students are about to experience and a post-performance Q&A session with the RSC ensemble actors they've just seen perform. The final workshop will occur a week after the students attend the performances, and will help them process their experience by using visual art, music, and/or movement to express what they've learned.

Education initiatives for teachers and teacher artists:
§ Professional Development workshops: A three-day program for elementary and high school teachers developed in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education and led by members of the RSC education team

§ Stand Up for Shakespeare Symposium: A day long event bringing together teachers, artists and other key influencers from New York City and The Ohio State University sharing their experiences on how to engage children with Shakespeare in the classroom

§ Shakespeare for Autistic Students: With the assistance of RSC actors and Armory teaching artists, Kelly Hunter, who plays Goneril in King Lear and Hermione in The Winters Tale, will facilitate a series of workshops around The Tempest for a group of autistic students.

During the residency, the RSC also celebrates the American launch of The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers, a publication which has had a great response from teachers in the UK, in Ohio as part of the partnership with The Ohio State University and in early viewings in New York. The Toolkit brings three of Shakespeare's most popular plays to life in the classroom - Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is published by A+C Black, a subsidiary of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Bloomsbury USA and Park Avenue Armory will host the launch at a breakfast event 8.30am-9am on Friday, July 8 in one of the Armory's historic receptions rooms.

"The students who get to take part in this program are going to have an extraordinary experience," said Park Avenue Armory President and Executive Producer Rebecca Robertson. "The RSC's education department and our teaching artists have crafted a fun and meaningful program which will get the kids excited about Shakespeare and understand how great works of art are always relevant to one's own life."

The RSC's Director of Education, Jacqui O'Hanlon said:

'We are delighted to be working in close collaboration with Park Avenue Armory, Lincoln Center Festival, The Ohio State University and the New York City Department of Education to develop our education program.

Our aim has been to create work that supports the vision of theatre educators and teachers across New York City to connect young people with Shakespeare in meaningful ways.

From our Young People's Shakespeare performance series (Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors), to our professional development program for teachers, we are living out the principles of our manifesto for Shakespeare in schools, Stand Up For Shakespeare, creating more opportunities for children and young people to: Do Shakespeare on their feet, See It Live and Start It Earlier.

There is a wealth of teaching talent already in New York City doing great work with Shakespeare and young people. We're looking forward to contributing to this body of work and ensuring even more children and young people get the best possible introduction to Shakespeare's plays."

Notes to Editors:

This summer, as part of an unprecedented six-week residency in New York City, RSC will present 44 performances of five Shakespeare plays - As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter's Tale - all to be performed on the Scarlet & Gray stage, in an exact replica of the Company's epic and intimate Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which will be erected in the Armory's vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall for the occasion. The RSC is presented in New York by Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory in association with The Ohio State University.

Out of School Time Programs (OST)

The OST program provides a mix of academic and cultural activities for young people after school, during holidays and in the summer. They are free of charge and are located in every neighborhood in New York City.

KEY EDUCATION PROGRAM DATES AT PARK AVENUE ARMORY
· Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors run from July 14 - August 2

· The Professional Development Program for Teachers runs from July 6-8

· The one-day Symposium exploring the role of Shakespeare in education takes place on July 13

· The RSC Shakespeare Toolkit for Teachers American launch event is July 8

· The Kelly Hunter project with Autistic students runs during July 29 - August 11 at Park Avenue Armory

RSC - STAND UP FOR SHAKESPEARE
Central to the RSC's work on tour and during its residency in New York this summer is a deep commitment to engaging children and young people in Shakespeare's plays.

In 2008, the company created a manifesto for teachers and young people called STAND UP FOR SHAKESPEARE which called for children and young people to:

Do Shakespeare on their feet - Many students who find Shakespeare boring say that sitting at desks and reading plays, rather than performing them, is one of the main frustrations. The best classroom experience allows young people to approach Shakespeare as actors do - as an ensemble, using active, exploratory, problem-solving methods to develop a greater understanding and enjoyment of the plays.

· See it Live - A script is like a musical score, telling only half the story. The text comes alive with the physical dynamic of the actors and the information which the set, lighting and music can provide. The sensory act of hearing, seeing and feeling the sounds, rhythms and words aids comprehension in a way that reading the play cannot.

· Start it Earlier - the later Shakespeare is introduced the harder it can seem. Perhaps the most challenging time for first contact is early teenage years when self-consciousness can inhibit the active ways of working most likely to foster initial understanding. The RSC advises that Shakespeare is introduced as early as eight and no later than eleven years of age.

The Education Program surrounding the company's residency at Park Avenue Armory is built upon these three principles.