Below you will find ...
* A Note To Parents
* Performances Of Shakespeare's Plays
A Note To Parents
Dear Parents,
Your children will study Shakespeare in high school. That is wonderful news and bad news. The bad part is that these marvelous plays are extraordinarily challenging for most students. Will a comedy of errors lead to a poor grade? Will your kids leave class with a lifelong aversion to some of the most magnificent plays the world has known? That would be tragic!
But I can help.
The study of Shakespeare is difficult for numerous reasons. One is the simple fact that Elizabethan English is so foreign to modern ears. This has to do with the order of words in a sentence, our unfamiliarity with the archaic words and phrases which abound in the plays, and the complexity of Shakespearian lines. And we haven't even mentioned the substantive content of the plays, which indeed can be profound and challenging.
As a full-time tutor with years of experience, I have helped dozens of youths understand and appreciate Shakespeare's plays. I employ a line-by-line approach, bearing in mind that the student must first become comfortable with a quasi-foreign language before moving on to mastery of the rich Shakespearian content. As we proceed, my students do indeed move into in-depth consideration of the themes of the Shakespearian canon taught in the schools: Romeo And Juliet; Macbeth; Othello; The Merchant Of Venice; A Midsummer Night's Dream; and of course, Hamlet!
A bit more about me? I hold degrees in history and law from the University Of California, I am a minor fiction author, a professional editor, and, most of all, an absolute Shakespeare nut who attends Shakespeare festivals, sees several live performances a year, and works with the major plays every month in the course of my normal tutoring practice.
I am now offering a short-term program of tutoring in Shakespeare for students who do not wish to sign up for long-term overall tutoring. Depending on the particulars of your child's class, five to seven individual lesson-hours spread over time should do just fine. So check your eighth grade or high school student's English reading list. If he or she is going to read any Shakespearian play this semester, drop me a note with your phone number, and I'll furnish additional details about myself and the help I can provide.
Your child can handle Shakespeare beautfully with a little support.
As Cassius says in Julius Caesar, "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves..." So let's not blame the stars -- instead let's make stars of our kids!
Yours in the love of Shakespeare,
Jon
Shakespeare Performances
One of the wonders of the Bay Area is the profusion of performances of Shakespeare's plays. No wonder we live here!
Note to parents:
By all means, take your kids to Shakespeare's plays, but for the best possible experience, take them only after they have studied the plays. I often remind students that Shakespeare wrote plays, not novels -- and plays are meant to be seen. However, studying the rich, challenging text, which students do in class and with me, is indispensable preparation for the viewing of the plays. Then, after the student has become comfortable with the text, he can attend a play and think, "I'm beginning to understand what the fuss is all about!" instead of, "Does anyone else here wonder what the heck those people in tights are saying?" So reward your child for her hard work by taking her to a play, lest all the study be deemed "much ado about nothing."
These are my favorite venues for enjoying Shakespeare:
The Marin Shakespeare Company. They have a wonderful three-play season every summer, and two of the plays are by The Bard. The setting can't be beat: an outdoor amphitheater under the balmy skies of San Rafael. This is really a great experience, believe me. I proposed to my wife before a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream! (Your results may vary).
The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. This roving festival puts on FREE performances throughout the Bay Area over a long season. They also have a wonderful summer Shakespeare camp. My daughter attended for four years, and had a terrific, rewarding time.
There are also the California Shakespeare Festival in Orinda and Shakespeare Santa Cruz at UC Santa Cruz. You can't go wrong at these, I am sure.
Happy viewing!
