Sorry, Shakespeare! by: mike willis EducaFUN Packet

Boaz Lo as Josh

Minna Cheung as Carrie

Joe Fiorello as Jason

Emma O’Rourke as Megan

What is Sorry, Shakespeare! about? !Four community theatre actors report for play rehearsal only to find out the director is not coming. To add to the confusion, one of the cast members has dropped three rehearsal scripts. The pages fly everywhere. No problem! - unless the scripts are "Macbeth," "The Taming of the Shrew," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." As one of the actors quips, "We don't know anything about Shakespeare, but it all sounds the same anyway, so grab some pages." The mayhem that results will have you wondering if this play is "to be, or not to be.”

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Who is Shakespeare? Shakespeare is the world’s most performed and most famous playwright!

HE ONLY LIVED TO BE 52! !

HE HAS BEEN PERFORMED IN OVER 80 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AND THERE ARE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVALS IN 65 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES,

(INCLUDING HONG KONG.) !

HE WROTE 37 PLAYS AND 154 SONNETS. THAT MEANS HE WROTE 1.5 PLAYS EVERY YEAR SINCE HE STARTED WRITING IN 1589!

!THERE ARE 157 MILLION PAGES ON THE INTERNET DEDICATED TO SHAKESPEARE. THE ONLY PERSON TO HAVE MORE PAGES IS GOD.

Why does Shakespeare matter? !!!

Shakespeare’s stories are timeless… Do you know which Shakespeare play The Lion King is based off of?__________________________________________________

Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play?

__________________________________________________Did you enjoy the show? What did you like?___________________________________________________

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What is iambic pentameter?Iambic pentameter is a type of rhythm in poetry. We use rhythm all the time- like in music or rap! Penta means Five. Meter means Count. Most sentences in Shakespeare are done in a count of five. Let us show you an example:

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Now you try! Can you mark the iambic pentameter in this couplet?

!TWO HOUSEHOLDS, BOTH ALIKE IN DIGNITY. IN FAIR VERONA WHERE WE LAY OUR SCENE.

Try saying it out loud! Did it sound funny?

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Why doesn’t he use normal words?

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Are you like Josh and confused why Shakespeare uses such big words? It’s true that Shakespeare uses a more “sophisticated and lyrical language”. That’s part of the fun! He used words to paint pictures for us. One reason why was because they didn’t have big budgets for props or costumes in old England, so they used words and their imaginations to create magical worlds inside their heads. If Shakespeare says “Look, here is a tree,” the whole audience will now believe there is a tree on stage.

To your left is a picture. Can you paint it with words for us? Try to not describe the image in basic terms but look at it from a lyrical perspective:

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Definitions

IDIOM- common phrases or terms whose meaning is not real, but can be understood by their popular use.

CHARACTER- a person in a story or play.

FIGURE OF SPEECH- use of a word or a phrase, which transcends its literal interpretation

ACTOR- the person who plays the character.

DIRECTOR- the person who is in charge of how the play looks and tells the actors what to do.

LYRICAL- expressing your emotions in a creative way. !

DRAW A CHARACTER FROM THE PLAY