Child's Play: The Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching Young People to Appropriate Shakespeare
Tony Tambasco
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TONY TAMBASCO (he / him) is a stage director and educator. Some recent directing credits include The Tempest with Northeast Stage, Larry Rinkel's new play Capriccio Radio with the Modern Classic Theatre Co. of Long Island, and the musical Fun Home with the Studio Theatre of Long Island. Tony's writing has been published in Theatre Symposium, Early Modern Digital Review, SDC Journal, and elsewhere. Tony holds an M.F.A. in directing and an M.Litt. from the American Shakespeare Center's partner program with Mary Baldwin University, and is a proud Associate Member of SDC, the union representing professional stage directors and choreographers. Tony lives on Long Island with his wife, Joanne, and son, Florenzo, who are his constant muses of joy and inspiration. You can learn more about Tony at www.TonyTambasco.com.
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Abstract
The legacy of Shakespeare in American theatres and classrooms is bound up with white-supremacist and ethnocentric programs to create an American monoculture that centers whiteness and northwest European values and works. Approaches to teaching Shakespeare that do not confront the history of white-supremacist appropriations of Shakespeare will ultimately reinforce those values, but even in settings of limited contact hours, it is possible for artists and educators to teach their students approaches to Shakespeare that emphasize the process of interpretation that always accompanies the presentation of his works. I had the opportunity to work with students in such a setting at the Bay Street Theater in 2018, and I believe that work can offer a template for others to follow to introduce students — even young students — to some of the concerns of reading and performing 400 year old plays according to their own values and sensibilities.
In the case study that follows, I describe the context of Shakespeare as a cultural brand that leads to his use as a teaching tool, the urgent necessity for confronting the racist and ethnocentric ends to which that branding has been applied, and ways that we might empower students to confront that history in their first experiences with Shakespeare in a “production class” of a professional theatre's education department with students aged 9-12. I believe these students left the production class with not only a better understanding of how to perform Shakespeare's verse, but why and how they should privilege their own, more inclusive values when encountering Shakespeare's works.
The legacy of Shakespeare in American theatres and classrooms is bound up with white-supremacist and ethnocentric programs to create an American monoculture that centers whiteness and northwest European values and works. Approaches to teaching Shakespeare that do not confront the history of white-supremacist appropriations of Shakespeare will ultimately reinforce those values, but even in settings of limited contact hours, it is possible for artists and educators to teach their students approaches to Shakespeare that emphasize the process of interpretation that always accompanies the presentation of his works. I had the opportunity to work with students in such a setting at the Bay Street Theater in 2018, and I believe that work can offer a template for others to follow to introduce students — even young students — to some of the concerns of reading and performing 400 year old plays according to their own values and sensibilities.
In the case study that follows, I describe the context of Shakespeare as a cultural brand that leads to his use as a teaching tool, the urgent necessity for confronting the racist and ethnocentric ends to which that branding has been applied, and ways that we might empower students to confront that history in their first experiences with Shakespeare in a “production class” of a professional theatre's education department with students aged 9-12. I believe these students left the production class with not only a better understanding of how to perform Shakespeare's verse, but why and how they should privilege their own, more inclusive values when encountering Shakespeare's works.
| etudesdec2023tambasco.pdf |
