The Summer Experience

Shakespearience Performing Arts will be operating the sixth season of its popular summer program this July.

Expanding on the success of the workshops Shakespearience has been taking into schools since 1998, the Shakespearience Summer Experience will offer two sections of a four week, full-day summer to students in Grades 7 and up. The workshop will run from 9:00 AM-3:00 PM from Monday, July 5 to Thursday, July 29, 2010.

Certified teachers and actors, working with professionally trained Shakespearience artists, will rehearse a group of 12-14 participants in scenes from the Shakespearean canon, tied together by a theme. Each day will begin with a physical and vocal warm-up offered by trained and experienced specialists. Actors from the Shakespearience program will visit the workshop and demonstrate professional rehearsal techniques along with experts in the field of voice, improvisation, stage combat, neutral mask and movement. Their method of working will serve as the model and provide students with insights into how professionals overcome plot, character interpretation and language barriers. This intensive rehearsal process will culminate with a presentation for family and friends on the final day of the program at the Canadian Stage Company’s Berkeley Street Theatre in downtown Toronto which is generously donating the space and providing a technician for the performance.

The programs goals include:

• Empowering young people with the possibilities of the English language
• Leading the participants to a sense of the benefits of surmounting challenges through focused, concentrated and consistent effort
• Instilling a strong self-confidence and self-esteem in the participants
• Fostering an ability to work in groups
• Developing improved written and verbal communication skills
• Producing enhanced interpersonal and social skills
• Encouraging a reinforced sense of empathy
• Nurturing an expanded sense of creativity
• Creating a newfound and long-term appreciation of dramatic literature
• Raising an awareness of the demands of the creative process
• Engendering an appreciation of dramatic literature and
• Developing an audience for cultural activities, especially the theatre and more particularly, classical theatre

Criteria: Young people who will benefit most from the program will likely possess or demonstrate heightened senses of

• Commitment
• Discipline
• Resilience
• A willingness to take risks
• A passion for learning

The Shakespearience Summer Experience will be provided free of charge to participants. Teachers are welcome to distribute the application form to any students at their schools who would be most likely to benefit from this program. Applications will be accepted by mail, fax at 416-502-9970 or via email which should be forwarded to mkaron@Shakespearience.ca.

The deadline for applications is Friday, June 18th, 2010.

For more information or if you have any questions, please feel free to call 416-845-1407.