Conducted by Unexpected Company’s lead teaching artists, this residency takes whatever play your class is reading and creates a “production” of it right in the classroom. The artists develop a production concept with student input, assign key roles and tasks to all class members, including actors, stage managers, lighting and costume, set, and sound designers and other vital functions. This program can be presented to students from middle school age to adults. The function of the play text as a blueprint for the drama experience is made vivid and compelling, and engages the entire class in its realization.
Page to Stage workshops have been developed for a number of plays including:
Romeo & Juliet
A Streetcar Named Desire
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Death of a Salesman
The Taming of the Shrew.
Page-to-Stage workshops can be condensed into a single class period or stretched out into a weeklong residency and can include presentations on theatre history and/or Shakespeare. The program works best when at least two hours can be devoted to the activities.
Unexpected Company has also developed Page to Stage workshops for literary works that have been adapted (or lend themselves to adaptation) for the stage. For a recent workshop on Dickens’ Great Expectations, we wrote a stage adaptation for several scenes from the book to show students how descriptive fiction can be translated to dramatic action.
For more information on the Page to Stage program, send e-mail to education@unexpectedcompany.com or call Lisa Norris at 515-288-9163.
