Top End Shakespeare:

Overall, what do you think has been the impact of the residency on the school – students and staff?

I absolutely feel this work has impacted the students and the staff. The growth we saw in a very brief period in literacy, confidence, pride, self-motivation, expression, and kindness was awe-inspiring. Brought together by a 400-year-old poet, I feel community was strengthened and family and creativity were deeply explored. The other staff members who weren’t necessarily connected to the English department showed fascination with the work and intrigue, constantly checking in on us to see if we were enjoying our time with their students. The impact on the staff was most apparent in their desire to have Bell Shakespeare back and to continue to maintain an ongoing relationship with the company and our philosophies around storytelling, sharing, ensemble, leadership and personal growth through creative arts.

Did you have a stand-out moment or experience from the residency?

There was one student who was neuro-diverse and was nerve-wracked a few days ago, who by the end of the second week confidently crossed the stage in the death scene as Montague and delivered his line (memorised) to the Capulets. Another girl had her lines printed separately in much larger font, to help her around her dyslexia; a girl who said she wanted to challenge herself to learn it off by heart. Another girl’s mother was apparently so proud that her daughter had been cast as Juliet that she even poked secretly into her child’s school bag to read the script, much to the embarrassment of her teenage girl.

Did your teaching focus change across the program?

Yes. ‘Change’ is key. I want transformation; little moments of seeing the shell open and the delicate creature within raise its curious head to great something new. We experienced this in abundance.

Tell us about a specific activity you conducted and how the students responded.

Some of the greatest activities weren’t necessarily Shakespeare focussed, but rather traditional, celebrated and tried and tested theatre games that set about to build confidence and to slowly let reluctance and fear fall away in the student cohort. Group shared games allowed each student to find their own voice, their sense of belonging and their personal power. It built beautiful ensemble practice and at times I felt we we’re in the midst of a burgeoning youth theatre company.

Could you share a story that speaks to the impact of the work you were doing?

It began with one of Bell Shakespeare’s favourite activities, Shakespeare’s Insults. I’ve never experienced a better beginner’s activity to gently introduce newcomers to Shakespeare’s vernacular. But it’s thrilling to see this ‘gentle’ move into the raucous and expressive, to hear the voices of the shy build and emerge in a safe arena with friends, love, support, and encouragement.

In this activity they are individually guided to choose and create an insult, choosing one colourful word from each of three columns, building a triple-barrelled phrase, beginning with the addition of ‘thou’. Before I even explain the exercise, as the students sit in a circle, they are already threading together words that induce laughter, curiosity and enthusiasm. We then direct them to work in small groups and to find a phrase to learn off-by-heart. They then have to create three gestures, as absurd as they want to match the flavour of the words themselves. They then play in a gang-style riff-off, two groups hurling the insults at each other with unbridled gusto.

By the end of it, they’ve been speaking (or yelling!) Shakespeare with confidence and conviction and they’re slowly pulling themselves from their own shells.

Shakespeare is introduced to them gradually, incrementally so that before they realise it they’re moving onto more complex acquisition of Shakespeare’s language and more lengthy exercises and in the case of Nhulunbuy grade 10s, they’re moving into fully-fledged rehearsals of characters and scene work, interacting with each other in 400-year-old language.

The impact of this program is about the light being switched on, the precious moment where the student becomes aware that they had a greater ability than the originally thought. They’re speaking poetry and they’re ready to do it as well as any trained actor.

How do you feel following the program?

Successful, empowered and illuminated. I feel the potential of this work, which may in its beginning feel rudimentary or simplistic. Far from it. The smallest and most simple of activities leads to bigger individual change to a powerful self-awareness. The students sit at the centre of their own creation.

Describe the impact this residency has had on you, as a person and/or an artist.

The impact is profound and becomes emotional. I find a sense of true purpose in this work, that takes me away from less important and less rewarding pursuits, both personally and professionally. There are little miracles here in these residencies, there’s change, transformation, and release. There are the little moments where I witness positive impact. There’s a sense of myself building and exposing myself as an artist still in a life-long commitment to growth. I’m more acutely aware each time I’m part of one of these residencies how much I carry home with me and how much the work sheds away what is superfluous in my creative life. Arrogantly, but I hope positively, this work gives me a sense of being a guru; what it is like to have a skill set that can break down barriers and bring people together in a life-altering manner. I’m dedicated to this.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about the residency or your experience?

Bell Shakespeare’s ongoing commitment to this work is what I would call the heart of the company. Its ripple effect is being mapped now and we move in for a brief time to leave students hungry and more fully-ware of their quiet, creative, and brilliant potential. These residencies are the cherry on the icing of the cake for us arts educators and the potential is endless and it’s already nagging at me to be explored again, and again, and again.