Love Shakespeare

For KS1 – KS3

Short or extended workshops
After school clubs
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What we offer

At Dramakarma we offer half day, full day or other packages suited to the needs of your school. We are a team, experienced in leading drama for young people in schools, theatres and after school clubs. Our main aim is helping young people access and fall in love with Shakespeare through practical based games and activities.

Activity Examples

Exercises designed to improve reading fluency while accessing difficult texts;
Opportunities for increasing and enriching vocabulary.
Maximising pupil speech from within the drama.
The thrill of involvement in moments of real drama.
Drama games and exercises bringing the language, character and situations to life;
Use of props and some costume to further enhance the experience;
Stimulus for writing in role from experience within drama.

“Their work was absolutely incredible involving stage fighting, tree branches (when Burnham Woods comes to Dunsinane), toil and trouble and drumming. Although only 8 or 9 years old, the children had no problem getting to grips with Shakespeare’s words.”
George Muxworthy, Head at Rode & Norton St Philip School Federation

Workshop Examples – KS1 & KS2

In our workshops we can offer all of the above linked to a text of your choice.

For example, a focus on Midsummer Night’s Dream could lead to stylised argument between Oberon and Titania with lines from the text shared between the fairies on each side. We could help the children create the world of each fairy group, assimilating the children’s ideas with those of the text.

In a workshop on Macbeth, we would frame the children returning from battle across a wild landscape, creating an atmosphere of unease and tension and focusing on the environment and a sense of superstition eventually leading to an encounter with the three witches.

A workshop based on The Tempest could begin with a soundscape to evoke the shipwreck, while also introducing the children to a puppeting game to suggest that this tragedy at sea is being controlled by other forces.

If you choose to look at a particular text we will create a reduced version of the story with the children so that they can experience it in its entirety as a set of edited highlights.

Workshop Examples – KS3

In Macbeth evoked the atmosphere of a barren heathland as warriors returned from battle using sound, physical activities and language. The children used elements of the text to recreate Macbeth’s encounter with the witches. We paid close attention to Macbeth’s soliloquies, using drama techniques to lay bare the metaphors at the heart of the key speeches. This led us to a climatic scene, exploring Macbeth’s conflicting thoughts in the moments leading up to the murder of Duncan.

In a workshop on Hamlet we engaged the children in a dramatic reconstruction of the shocking and thrilling opening scene in which the young prince is faced with the central dilemma. A further practical exploration of the ‘Murder of Gonzago’ section engaged the children and helped them realise the powerful effect this would have on the royal audience.

Focusing on Comedy of Errors we used props and items of symbolic costume to help the children visualise the characters within the farce and helped children to develop some of the comic skills that are intrinsic to the text through practical exercises.

A more generalised approach to Shakespeare could see us explore key passages from different plays, exploring language, speeches and character.