The Shakespeare Workshop: The Cost of the Workshop

The cost for for returning Shakespeare Workshop participants is $66 per student. This includes EVERYTHING your student will need, including a theater ticket to see Macbeth at the Indianapolis Repertory Theater, plus books and handouts. This also includes a fee for printing. (Each student receives a number of handouts relating to literary theory and the play itself that are kept in the Shakespeare Workshop binder: these notes may serve them in the future in their literary studies in high school or college.)

The cost for those new to the program is $76. For the Macbeth Workshop, this includes the student's theater ticket, books, handouts, printing fees and the Shakespeare Workshop binder (the binder has a book insert as well.) The binder/book is a one-time-only fee.


For the Macbeth Workshop: A payment of $33 per student is required by May 31 to reserve your student's place in the class, not July 1, 2008 as stated in the Macbeth Workshop brochure. Because of circumstances in the past, I regret that I will be unable to refund this initial deposit, since books must be ordered and theater tickets reserved.

The balance of the payment will be due on July 1, 2008, not September 9 as stated in the Macbeth Workshop brochure.

The Shakespeare Workshop: Parents and the Workshop

Adults are welcome to audit the Shakespeare Workshop. I give all attending parents free handouts for each class, but if you'd like to have a binder (with book insert) and books, the cost will be $20. If you would like a binder, books and a ticket to Hamlet, the cost will be $33. If you would just like to purchase a ticket, the cost will be $13. It's a lot of fun having parents in the class, so please feel free to join us -- or go and enjoy a few hours of free time!

Again, I regret that I can no longer order theater tickets for students or adults who are not participating in the Macbeth Workshop.

The Shakespeare Workshop: Indiana Academic Standards

The Shakespeare Workshop complies with the following Indiana Academic Standards:

7.3.7; 7.3.8; 7.3.9; 8.3.2; 8.3.4; 8.3.5; 8.3.6; 8.3.7; 9.3.2; 9.3.10; 9.3.13; 10.3.10; 10.3.13; 10.5.9; 10.7.13; 12.3.6; 12.3.9

Students seeking high school credit through the Workshop will be required to write two papers (one assigned topic and one approved topic of their choice) and take a final exam. This is ONLY intended for the convenience of the students' parents: If ICHSA parents would like to administer their own evaluations of what their students have learned, that is perfectly acceptable. I offer the service of grading essays and exams only for those who would like to avail themselves of that convenience.

I am happy to fill out any elective subject papers for students in the Seton Homeschool, Mother of Divine Grace, Kolbe Academy, etc. Please send them to me on or before the first day of class and I'll return them to you when the class ends.

Although the Shakespeare Workshop is open for ICHSA students in grades 5-12 (roughly middle school/high school students) the class is taught at the high school level. If your middle school student is interested in history and literature and is a motivated learner, he or she may really enjoy the class.


If you'd like to review the Indiana Academic Standards, please click on this link to find downloadable High School English/Language Arts course requirements, which can be viewed in either PDF or Word format.

The Shakespeare Workshop: A Catholic Activity

The Shakespeare Workshop is, primarily, a Catholic activity. In the Workshop, the students will learn about scholars' opinions that William Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic during the Protestant Reformation in Tudor/Stuart England and how his possible Catholic faith influenced his writing. That is our focus, and really, the entire reason for The Shakespeare Workshop to be. There's a lot of information about William Shakespeare's life and writing out there, but the theories of his Catholic faith are fairly new. These theories bring us a whole new way of looking at his life and his body of work -- a way that Catholic students (and all others) ought to know about.

I am particularly excited about teaching this Macbeth class in the fall of 2008, mostly because of the tangled Catholic and Protestant history surrounding its writing and performance. Macbeth was written to placate King James I, who had just come through the Gunpowder Plot, an assassination attempt supposedly plotted by angry Catholics who were frustrated that his reign had not led to greater tolerance of the Catholic faith.

___________________________________

Remember, remember the Fifth of
November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why
Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was
his intent
To blow up King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder
below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was
catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys,
let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the
King!

_______________________________

The guilty parties were all men from William Shakespeare's home county, Warwickshire, and the plan was put together at the Mermaid Tavern in London, which was Shakespeare's neighborhood pub. Considering the fact that some of the conspirators were immediately put to death without benefit of trial, it's not difficult to imagine Shakespeare's perilous position. It was already well-known that his parents were quiet yet defiant Catholics.

Macbeth is considered to be one of William Shakespeare's most intriguing plays, both in the history that surrounds it writing and performance in London before King James I, and in its plot: with witches, ghosts, murderous ambitions, guilty consciences and invisible bloodstains galore, it is a show to keep one on the edge of one's seat.