Puppets, Drama, and Shakespeare Camp
Fees: $365 for a half day, $515 for a full day.
• one class per workshop •
Three day residencies are $1,500, and can include a Rag & Bone show as an introduction.
Subsidies are available for disadvantaged or under-served communities. Please ask for details.
Our drama workshops are one block (a quarter day) long.
We need an open space for drama workshops—the gym, the library, or a classroom with desks pushed aside. Participants should wear comfortable clothes that can move.
Students are lead through a series of warm-ups, drama games, and group activities. We tailor the workshop to the age and ability of the participants.
We have a pdf booklet of drama games and activites here.
Puppet workshops take two blocks (one half day), one class per session. Each student would glue together scraps of wood to make a sturdy little puppet, then use their puppet in a short skit with classmates, in groups of four.
From Junior Kindergarten to adult, everyone loves the look and feel of real wood. We collect scraps from cabinet makers and show participants how to play with the pieces until they look right, glue flat surfaces together, then add features, a handle and a fabric body.
The result? A sturdy little rod puppets that can be used for all kinds of dramatic presentations. Every puppet is unique and everyone can do it.
One half day session is enough time to make the puppets, talk about how to work a puppet and how to make up stories for puppet shows, and give small groups a chance to share their creativity with the class.
Our scrap wood puppets pdf is here.
Our mask making workshops are suitable for grades four and up. We've developed a simple approach that is very successful.
We introduce the students to mask-making traditions from various culture. Then, they make their masks out of a durable, tear-resistant felt called Flex-firm, and colour them with crayons, coloured pencils or permanent markers.
They can then work in small groups using creative drama techniques to create a presentation.
We've prepared a booklet on our mask workshops which you can see here.
It can be tricky getting the position of the eyes holes right, so we provide a simple template for that. You can see it here.
For younger students we have prepared templates for few different animal masks. You can see them here.
We are also available for some longer school visits. A week might begin with a performance of one of our shows for your students, followed by puppet/drama workshops for several classes and end with a presentation of student work.
We've also taught drama and puppet making at The School of Dance and the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama for many years.
Summer Shakespeare Camp
Young actors perform a Shakespeare play, outdoors, in the month of July.
The camp is centred on acting skills, including stage combat (with swords), voice work, singing, using the acting clues in Shakespeare's first folio, commedia dell'arte and more!
No acting or Shakespeare experience is necessary. This camp is a great introduction for beginners. For those with experience, this is a chance to be challenged and to bring your work to the next level, while having a lot of fun.
Details...
Free online workshops....
You can access the sessions at whatever pace suits your class best—over several weeks if you like.
Of course, we're happy to do follow up in-class activities as well.
Drama: activities & games
This series of drama games and activities is based on our years of work with participants of all ages.
It can be adapted to many different groups.
A rubric for the workshop is available as a pdf, or as a Word doc.
Start here...
This series of seven videos will guide your students through a step-by-step process of making simple but effective cardboard and cloth puppets, and using them in short, collaborative drama skits. Feel free to skip back and forth depending on your grade level. (The whole sequence is about 50 minutes long.)
See the rubric for this workshop, available as a pdf here, or as a Word doc here.
Start here...
You need:
- Paper
- Scissors – medium sized
- A pencil
- Cardboard—cereal box or other box or Bristol board
- Glue or tape—white glue or glue stick for some things. Tape—masking tape or scotch tape.
- Crayons or markers or pencil crayons.
You might also want:
- Some fabric – like a scarf or an old T-shirt
- A long thin thing for a handle—wooden spoon, pencil, popsicle stick, chopstick, butter knife, paper towel tube, ruler, paint stirrer.
- Construction paper
- A stapler
- Stickers
- Scraps of fabric, wool or fur
