frequentlyaskedquestions*abouthamletprojectdurham ... ·...

Frequently asked questions about Hamlet Project Durham Hamlet Project Durham (HPD) PERFORMANCE TRACK FAQS

“The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!”

“Hamlet” Act I, scene 5

What is the HPD? HPD is a 5-‐year artistic, career-‐training, education boosting, cultural change project constructed around an intentionally multi-‐racial core group of, initially, eighteen to twenty 9 – 12-‐year-‐old actors, preparing to perform William Shakespeare’s masterwork “Hamlet” in Spring 2020.

Where did the idea for Hamlet Project Durham originate? Jennifer Justice, M.F.A., M.Div., DRT artistic director and “Master Storyteller,” authored HPD; all HPD materials, including but not limited to course curriculums and organizational structures, created by Ms. Justice remain under her individual copyright. Durham Regional Theatre (DRT,) an intentionally multi-‐racial, multi-‐ethnic community theatre serving an intergenerational population is the HPD producer and the project as a whole is under their umbrella.

How does it work? HPD is an educational program that moves from the specific to the general. It starts with a group of 10-‐20 Performance Track students, aged 9 – 12 years old. Beginning in September 2015, students on the HPD Performance Track must be available to attend all classes and rehearsals and to perform William Shakespeare’s masterwork, “Hamlet,” in the spring of 2020. The group of 10-‐20 students who commit to the performance track will be multi-‐racial in make-‐up, representing Durham, North Carolina’s strongly diverse neighborhoods. Throughout the five-‐years of classes and rehearsals, there will be additional opportunities for students to join HPD.

Why use William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for the project? “Hamlet” is viewed widely as one of the greatest plays written in the English language; Shakespeare’s innovative, imaginative use of language added 1,700 words to our common vocabulary. In his masterwork, “Hamlet,” he introduced 170 new words. HPD takes advantage of this rich resource to use strategies of language immersion, creative motivation, acting training and literary analysis to increase oral, written and reading literacy in participants.

“Estimates show that about 40% of fourth graders struggle with reading at even basic levels and there is a markedly disproportionate representation of children who are poor and who belong to ethnic or racial minorities among those who struggle with reading...

“Literacy and its Impact on Child Development,” Dr. Laura M. Justice, 2010

“Children’s ongoing engagement in literacy activities and their developing propensity toward considering language as an object of attention become primary routes for language development.”

Dr. Laura M. Justice, 2010

Because each person’s life is balanced on the edge of a sword

“Hamlet Project Durham,” Justice HPD FAQS 2

Durham Regional Theatre, P.O. Box 61894, Durham, NC 27715, (919) 286-‐5717, [email protected], DurhamRegionalTheatre.com/Hamlet

“In a 5,200-hour year (the amount of language experience) would be 11.2 million words for a child in a professional family, 6.5 million words for a child in a working-class family, and 3.2 million words for a child in a welfare family. In four years of such experience, an average child in a professional family would have experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family would have experience with 26 million words, and an average child in a welfare family would have accumulated experience with 13 million words.”

“The Early Catastrophe,” by Betty Hart and Todd R. Risely

“The fourth-‐grade reading gap (which widens in each succeeding grade) represents the single greatest failure in American public schooling and the most disheartening affront to the ideal of democratic education.”

By E.D. Hirsch Jr., American Educator Magazine “His (Shakespeare’s) vocabulary was the largest of any writer, at over twenty-‐four thousand words. According to James Davie Butler, "… (The total vocabulary) of Homer, including the hymns as well as both Iliad and Odyssey, is scarcely nine thousand."

The Once Used Words in Shakespeare, James D. Butler, read before the Shakespeare Society of America, April 22, 1886 (p. 2)

“Phonological awareness is the ability to consciously reflect on and manipulate the sound system of a language. It is foundational to success in reading, writing, and spelling.”

. Justice (2010) and Roseberry-‐McKibbin (2007, 2013) .

“A child’s oral language development provides the foundation for all other language and literacy skills … Our vocabulary and language ability control the way we are able to think about things. Understanding words orally is essential to being able to understand words written down.”

From Oral Language and Early Literacy by Kathleen A. Roskos, Patton O. Tabors, and Lisa A Lenhart. (2009, International Reading Association)

Hamlet, the young Danish prince who is the central character of the story, struggles with almost immobilizing uncertainty about how to live ethically and how to act effectively in challenging, “out-‐of-‐joint,” times. When faced with the responsibility to remedy the unthinkable act of brother killing brother, young Hamlet is driven to despair and contemplates suicide. His friends try to support Hamlet as he teeters on the edge of a sword, but he feels isolated in the responsibility that was laid on him by the ghost of his father with the words, “Remember me.” He simply cannot figure out how to live up to what the time and place demand of him.

Is there a happy ending possible somewhere for this young prince? We know there is not. We recognize this as a tragic tale, a tale both old and tragically new. We hope in the new age there can be, if not a fairytale happy ending, at least accessible paths to satisfying human lives. With HPD, we work to create positive possibilities and capabilities among groups of young men and women living in “out-‐of-‐joint” times and faced with the responsibility to solve nearly unbearable life-‐altering problems.

We are convinced there could be no better play than William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” with which to accomplish the goals of this project.



Performance Track Schedule from 9/2015 – 6/2020 From Fall 2015 – Spring 2019 performance students will attend HPD 90-‐minute classes once a week, on Thursday afternoons, in 8-‐week sessions over the fall-‐winter-‐spring months; in September 2019 performance track students will begin formal rehearsals for “Hamlet.” (4-‐ per week on afternoons and evenings, schedule TBD) After a 3-‐week break for the December holidays, rehearsals will continue four times a week until 2-‐weeks before performance. Public performances will be in spring 2020.

HPD classes focus on learning skills required for a quality performance of “Hamlet,” including but not limited to: acting styles and techniques, skills in short and long-‐term memory, expanded vocabulary, stage movement, fencing, literary text analysis, philosophy, medieval history, Greek and Roman myth and legend, stage dialects, and vocal techniques developed by Kristen Linklatter in “Freeing the Natural Voice.” Guest teachers in the Performance Track will be professionals in fields of dance, voice, acting & directing Shakespeare, English stage dialects, etc.

Along with the Performance Track classes, we hope to add a Technical Track to support the 2020 “Hamlet” production. Each track will be taught and/or guest taught by a professional in the field to the level required for our production of “Hamlet.”

With significant community support, we will be able to create a model for using the educational opportunities inherent in theatre arts to transform systemic patterns of poverty based on race in the United States. We will bridge participants from the HPD program into educational and work opportunities that will further their goals.

Who can participate? Do you have to be poor, Hispanic or African American? Increased isolation is one extremely violent impact of poverty. Children experiencing this isolation are at serious risk for underdeveloped linguistic and social skills necessary to navigate in an increasingly complex, multi-‐cultural society. Programs that address educational goals for under-‐resourced communities without addressing systemic isolation fail to build social skills and bridges that can empower impoverished individuals to move beyond that isolation.

In accordance with the intentional multi-‐racial commitment of DRT, HPD will bring together people of various races, ethnicities and classes with a strong commitment to inclusion of traditionally excluded peoples, primarily African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos. All may participate in the project, benefit from its programs, improve the quality of their lives and pass what they learn to others.

What will it cost a family to participate? In September 2015, classes for performance track participants who make the full commitment to 2020 will begin; the cost per student for each 8-‐week session will be a $25 materials fee. Payment may be made annually or at the time of each 8-‐week session. Scholarships are available for families that cannot afford the materials fee.



CASTING THE PLAY: What roles are available and when will we know what role we are performing? The leading roles in “Hamlet” are: Hamlet, Horateo, Polonius, Laertes, Claudius, Gertrude and Ophelia. There are also significant “supporting roles” such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Prince Fortinbras, the Players and the Gravediggers.

All students who commit to participating for the entire 5-‐years of classes, rehearsals and performances will receive a leading or featured role in the play; “Hamlet” leading actors may also be asked to perform a featured or supporting role for shows when the alternate cast is performing the leads. (i.e. Play the role of Hamlet one night and the Gravedigger another night or, possibly, Gertrude one night, Fortinbras another night)

NOTE: We will cast up to two groups of leading actors; both groups will perform the play in 2020. Leading roles and supporting roles will be cast at the end of the September 2015 8-‐week HPD class. GENDER: Females may be cast in male roles, with the expectation that they will perform at the same level of believability as all others.

PRE-‐CASTING: The young actor whose talents inspired the HPD has already been cast in the role of Hamlet. That leaves one actor (male or female) who can still be cast as the second cast Hamlet.

What happens if we get halfway through the project and have to move away from Durham or must leave the project for another similarly compelling reason?

• We will have two-‐casts of leading actors, so that if one Gertrude has to leave another can perform with both groups. We can also switch actors in smaller parts to larger ones and take in new students to fill the vacated smaller role.

Why would a family choose to invest this much time in one project? • Significant increase in student vocabulary; • Student-‐motivated oral, written and reading experience and skills building; • Increase memory capacity, both long and short-‐term; • Increase physical, mental and verbal self-‐confidence, self-‐esteem; • Consistent, high quality training in a field of interest; • As an antidote to an educational culture that crams as much information into a student’s

brain as it can as quickly as it can, checks a subject off the testing requirements list and moves on to the next. With HPD, students will have the satisfaction of experiencing what they have learned in a variety of ways on ever more impactful levels over time, and putting their knowledge to practical use;

• Students will learn curiosity, how to think, how to examine an exciting subject deeply and how to experience failure as a precursor to greater success;

• Areas of learning in the HPD performance track parallel and enhance comprehension of many N.C. state educational proficiency areas;

• Connections with and training by experts in their fields from area arts and educational organizations …

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