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The Globe Theatre

Student Outcome Statement: Arts in Society - Level 3 – Identifies and discusses specific features of the arts in own community and in other cultures or times and relates this understanding to own arts works and activities.

Teaching/Learning Purposes/Objectives: To enable students to:

Major Purpose: To understand the time in which Shakespeare wrote his plays

Key Question: What did Shakespeare’s stage look like?

Inspiration: A Drama and the Curriculum lesson plan

The Hook: You are going to perform on the famous Globe theatre

- What’s happening? A performance for Queen Elizabeth I

- Who’s it happening to? Yourself, as an actor

- Where is it happening? In the Globe Theatre

- When is it happening? This afternoon

- What’s at stake? You must know your stage well to successfully and purposefully perform to your audience.

Additional picture of the Globe provided in Charney, M. (1971) How to Read Shakespeare, McGraw-Hill Book Company: New York, between pages 86-87.

- Present ‘the Hook’ – In a whole group activity, discuss the importance of understanding and purposefully using the given stage area. Look at some examples of websites that display such images or maps.

- Begin project – In pairs, ask the students to choose a website which they believe offers the best representation of a Shakespearean stage. From this, they need to construct a ‘working’ diorama that is capable of allowing finger or sock puppets to perform on the ‘stage’. Students must also decide on a play to be performed. The pair will need to perform one scene from a Shakespearean play using their puppets.

- Introduce promotional advertisement. As students complete this project, additional time could be included to advertise their upcoming plays as an event.

- Performance – The project is completed through the day event of each pair’s performances. Possibly a ‘Shakespearean Day’ (albeit dress-up or speech) could reflect the similar ‘event-ness’ of the Elizabethan era.

- Conclusion – Although this project would not be an introductory lesson, it could be created over many lessons near the end of the year. A coinciding journal would allow students to justify their choices, and those of their partner.

Some parts modelled upon ‘The Giant who threw Tantrums’ in John O’Toole and Julie Dunn (2002) Pretending to Learn: Helping Children learn through Drama, Longman French’s Forrest.