Workshop at the 19th Annual Pedagogy and
Theatre of the Oppressed Conference
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, USA
June 27 – 30, 2013
Three expert facilitators with over 50 years of experience in theatre education will share their dialogic, participatory methods for performing Shakespeare with youth and at-risk populations in this highly interactive, two-part workshop.
Facilitators
Dr. Jonathan Shailor, Founder and Director of The Shakespeare Prison Project (Wisconsin), Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and editor of Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Jonathan Shailor has been directly trained on multiple occasions by the originator of the theatre of the oppressed, Augusto Boal, and has incorporated Boal's method's into his own approach, the theatre of empowerment: a process of storytelling, dialogue, and performance focused on empowerment, compassionate communication, and social justice. Shailor has worked with prisoners, at-risk youth, and the homeless since 1995.
Christopher Shailor, M.Ed., Director of The Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School Theatre Workshop (Massachusetts), an award-winning theatre education program which he has led for over 20 years. This year (2013) his HWRHS Theatre Workshop has once again been chosen to represent the State of Massachusetts at the New England High School Theatre Festival. Christopher Shailor is also founder and artistic director of The Sleepy Lion Theatre Company, a summer theatre which produced Shakespeare's works and other plays in Topsfield, Mass. Christopher has been an ongoing consultant to The Shakespeare Prison Project since 2004.
Nicholas Leair is a graduate of The Shakespeare Prison Project at Racine Correctional Institution, where he played the role of Ferdinand in The Tempest. More recently, he has performed in scenes from The Tempest and Henry IV, Part 2, and shared reflections on his work with The Shakespeare Prison Project at the Rita Tallent Pickens Center for the Arts and Humanities, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Nick is a founding member of Shakespeare Beyond Bars (Wisconsin).
Session One: Connecting to Shakespeare, and Bringing the Words to Life. In part one, participants will learn how to make an embodied, personal connection to a scene from Shakespeare, using a variety of methods from Augusto Boal's Image Theatre. Then, participants will build and shape their scenes using techniques developed by Scott Kaiser.
Session Two: Using Shakespeare to Explore and Recreate Our Social Worlds. In part two, participants will deepen their exploration of the scenes and their connection to their lives, by employing methods from Boal's Rainbow of Desire and Carl Jung's Active Imagination.
