The aims are to:

• learn how to read and perform a script
• understand more about Shakespearean theatre
• learn more about the use of sound and movement.

By the end of this project, students are expected to have:

• developed a character from a Shakespeare play
• understood and used relevant techniques
• helped to create a performance
• used sound and movement effectively in a performance.

The skills covered in this project include (but are not limited to) devil and angel, hot seating, narrator, prepared improvisation, role play, sound circle, spontaneous improvisation and still image.

The techniques which are covered in lessons in this project include:

• character development
• devil and angel
• hot seating
• mime
• performance
• self-narration
• sound circle
• still image.

The key words which are used in this project include:

• devil and angel
• hot seating
• performance
• rehearsal
• self-evaluation
• self-narration
• sound circle
• stereotype
• still image.

The text which students encounter during this project includes an abridged version of Act 1: Scene 1 and other selected scenes from Macbeth, percussion instruments, a summary of the play, and research about Elizabethan theatre and about Shakespeare’s life and times.

This series of lessons has cross-curricular links with Citizenship, History and English.

Students should be assessed in this project on the extent to which they:

• show an understanding of Shakespearean language through rehearsal and performance
• use a sound circle
• develop a character from a script
• portray a character and perform their role successfully
• evaluate their work and that of others.

Web sites which could be used for further information on this topic include:

	Shakespeare Online

	Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

	The British Theatre Guide: Macbeth on the Estate

This project meets the following recommendations from Drama in Schools (Second Edition) (Arts Council England, 2003). For a complete mapping, see Managing: Drama in Schools.

Level 4: Responding

• Demonstrate an awareness of some theatre traditions from different times and places, eg Kathakali dance drama, Greek or Tudor theatre

Level 5: Making

• Interpret and rehearse extracts from a range of scripted plays

Level 5: Responding

• Relate, compare and contrast their work with drama from other times and cultures
• Compare different interpretations of the same text, eg extracts from two videos of the same play

Level 6: Making

• Create and represent clearly defined characters from the written work, add depth and consider motivation

Level 6: Responding

• Use correct terminology to describe their own work and begin to analyse how actors, technicians and directors have achieved specific effects or communicated ideas, emotions and feelings