Lessons from Shakespeare’s Classroom

Robin Lithgow was the first ever Theatre Adviser, and later the Director, of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Arts Education Branch. In that role she and her colleagues were the architects of the Elementary Arts Program, serving every one of over 550 elementary schools, with itinerant teachers in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts. She is the daughter of Arthur Lithgow, perhaps the only person ever to have produced every play in Shakespeare’s canon. She is the sister of the theatre and film actor, John Lithgow, who has kindly illustrated this book.

Timeline

Cast of Characters

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1. Time Travel: Setting the scene

Chapter 2. Engagement before Information: Instruction in both colloquial and rhetorical language in Elizabethan schools

Chapter 3. Angels and Eaglets: Schoolboy actors set the scene

Chapter 4. Good Behavior and Audacity: The training up of Elizabethan schoolboys

Chapter 5. The Lego Snap of Learning: Research in arts education and neuroscience

Chapter 6. Context: The Hatch and Brood of Time: A brief history of the English Reformation

Chapter 7. Erasmus’ Egg: His life and his works in support of performing arts in education

Chapter 8. The Delightful Mulcaster: Playmaking schoolmasters in Tudor England

Chapter 9. Per Quam Figuram? Rhetoric in Shakespeare’s classroom

Chapter 10. Erasmus Writes Colloquies: Classroom training in Latin conversation

Chapter 11. The Little Eyases: Professional boy actors in the 16th century

Chapter 12. Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix I: Performing the Colloquies

Examples of Erasmus’ Colloquies in Latin and English








Proci and puellae (Courtship)



Naufragium (The Shipwreck)



Uxor (Marriage)



Abattis et eruditae (The Abbot and the Learned Woman)



Herilia (A Master’s Commands)



Appendix II: Selection of Educational Drama Resources for Teachers

Index