From hands-on classes to discussion seminars, our new online courses were designed to spark thoughtful dialogue and deepen your connection to Chicago Shakespeare.
(If you are interested in learning instead about class offerings for performers, please contact castingoffice@chicagoshakes.com for further details.)
Interested in learning about future classes? Let us know.
Past Classes We’ve Offered This Year
THE BARD ON BROADWAY (NEW!)
Shakespeare has permeated every part of the world's culture—and the greatest of American art forms, the American Musical, is no exception. This two-part class with Chicago Shakespeare Casting Director Bob Mason will survey several major Shakespeare-to-Broadway (and off-Broadway) adaptations, such as The Boys from Syracuse, West Side Story, Kiss Me, Kate, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Chicago Shakespeare's own Q Brothers’ Othello: The Remix. We will also glance at some Shakespeare musical flops, such as Swingin’ the Dream and Rockabye Hamlet. For fans of Shakespeare, the Broadway musical, or both! Classes will meet over Zoom and registration is limited to 25 participants.
FINDING CLUES IN SHAKESPEARE’S FIRST FOLIO
As you’ve sat in the audience watching a production, have you wondered how the actors on Chicago Shakespeare’s stages make Shakespeare’s language so clear? Join us for this two-session class with Chicago Shakespeare Casting Director Bob Mason, who will introduce participants to the “First Folio technique” used by our text coaches, directors, and cast members. This fun, accessible way to analyze Shakespeare’s language provides insight into how actors unlock clues and bring his characters to life on stage. In this participatory class, participants will have the chance to “speak the speech” with fellow class members. All sessions will meet over Zoom and registration is limited to 25 participants. Novices only!
HAMLET—FOR NOW (NEW!)
In this four-session course we’ll explore how the significance of a work as expansive as Shakespeare’s Hamlet changes as we change. Participants will read Shakespeare’s tragedy alongside stage, film, and online performances to discuss how twenty-first-century artists continue to re-shape Hamlet to reflect our present moment. With Chicago Shakespeare Theater Public Humanities Manager and Pre•Amble scholar Sara B.T. Thiel, this class compares recent stage interpretations from Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Public Theater, and the Royal Shakespeare Company alongside 2020 digital social justice projects and film adaptations, like Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2014 Haider. Together we’ll explore what Hamlet means not for all time, but for an age. Classes will meet over Zoom and registration is limited to 25 people. Participants should have access to their own copy of Hamlet (either a physical or digital copy). Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider is available for streaming on Netflix. All other materials will be available online or in-class.
HOW TO READ A PLAY
For even the most experienced playgoers, reading a play can pose a real challenge. How do you “see” what a group of artists does? Join Chicago Shakespeare Theater Public Humanities Manager and Pre•Amble scholar Sara B.T. Thiel for this “play reading 101”one-session class. Using the influential essay “Visit to a Small Planet,” by Dr. Elinor Fuchs (Professor Emerita, Yale School of Drama), and contemporary short plays by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, participants will learn what questions to “ask” a script and how to enjoy the process of reading a play, cover to cover! This small-group discussion will meet over Zoom and registration is limited to 25 participants.
THE TEMPEST AS RESISTANCE (NEW!)
The Tempest has long been interpreted as a celebration of art, drama, and the power of poetry. Yet Shakespeare’s final single-authored play has also been taken up by a range of marginalized voices across the globe in order to speak back to power. This four-session course with scholar Vanessa I. Corredera, who specializes in Shakespeare, race, and adaptation, will place works by Roberto Fernández Retamar (“Caliban”), Aimé Césaire (Un Tempête/A Tempest), and Elizabeth Nunez (Prospero’s Daughter) in conversation with The Tempest on the page and in performance. These interactions with The Tempest take Caliban’s perspective, not Prospero’s, using Shakespeare’s late play to question the connections between authority, identity, art, and oppression. Together, we will explore how and why The Tempest has frequently been used as a lightning rod for ideological and socio-political resistance. Classes will meet over Zoom and registration is limited to 25 people. Participants should have access to their own copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Nunez’s Prospero’s Daughter (either a physical or digital copy). All other materials will be available online or in-class.