It’s Playtime – Courtesy of the Guildford Shakespeare Company

Published on: 3 Nov, 2018
Updated on: 7 Nov, 2018

GSC The Play’s The Thing – Macbeth Witches

By Alice Fowler

The Guildford Shakespeare Company has begun its first tour of secondary schools in Surrey. The GSC’s programme, ‘The Play’s The Thing’, will deliver the two most popular Shakespeare plays studied at GCSE, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.

These will be performed at twelve disadvantaged schools, including Kings College and Christ’s College in Guildford. Each school will receive a free professional performance with follow-up workshops on the school’s chosen GCSE Shakespeare text.

The tour has been scheduled for the beginning of the academic year, so teachers can integrate the programme into their year’s work. Over 1,500 children will benefit from the project.

GSC Rehearsing Macbeth

Ant Stones, GSC’s Head of Education said: “ ‘The Play’s The Thing’ is inspired by our primary schools tour, which we’ve successfully run for the last three years. We’ve got a wonderful cast who are not just talented actors but also enthusiastic about the chance to help students who wouldn’t be able to access our work otherwise.”

Each school will receive their performance on site, for an entire year group. The script will be abridged, using the original text and conclude with a 20-minute Q&A session. After the performance, the cast of four actors will remain at the school to run workshops.

Through practical exercises, students will gain first-hand knowledge of language, themes and interpretation. Teachers will also gain new skills to take forward into the classroom. ‘The Play’s The Thing’ is part of Brave New World, GSC’s year-long programme of outreach projects, which seeks to reduce social isolation and assist disadvantaged schools and individuals across Surrey.

Many of the projects are free-to-access pilot-programmes and GSC will be able to share their experiences with local authorities and charities.