Interpreting Shakespeare
Professional Learning Day
Presented in conjunction with La Trobe University, to mark the
th
400 anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, this one day professional learning
program offers teachers stimulating and thought-provoking approaches to
reading and teaching Shakespeare texts.
Interpreting Shakespeare Professional Learning Day Program
8.45am – 9.15am
REGISTRATION: ACMI ENTRANCE
9.15am – 10.15am
CINEMA 1
Interpreting Romeo and Juliet on film Tony Thompson + Staging and adapting Macbeth Dr Rob Conkie
10.15am – 11.00am
MORNING TEA
11.00am – 1.00pm
Breakout sessions
SESSION 1A:
CINEMA 1
Film screening:
Romeo and Juliet
2013
1.00pm – 2.00pm
LUNCH
2.00pm – 3.00pm
Breakout sessions
SESSION 2A+B+D:
CINEMA 1
Macbeth on screens,
in the classroom and
online
3.00pm -- 3.30pm
CINEMA 1
3.00pm -- Professor Paul Salzman introduces the history of the Shakespeare texts we use today.
3.10pm Meet the presenters and get them to answer some of your burning questions about Shakespeare.
SESSION 1B:
CINEMA 2
Film screening:
Macbeth 2015
SESSION 1C+D
STUDIO 1
Green screen
workshop:
Interpret and create
Shakespearean
characters +
‘Sweding’
Shakespeare
production workshop
SESSION 1E
BOARDROOM
iPad Activity:
Macbeth’s witches +
Shakespeare in
performance
SESSION 1F
THE CUBE
Exploring Romeo and
Juliet + Shakespeare
in performance
SESSION 2C
STUDIO 1
Green screen
workshop:
interpret and create
Shakespearean
characters
SESSION 2E
BOARDROOM
iPad Activity: focus on
Luhrmann’s Romeo &
Juliet
SESSION 2F
THE CUBE
Shakespeare, teen films and the language of
cinema
PROGRAM DETAILS
Interpreting Romeo and Juliet on film Tony Thompson + Staging and adapting Macbeth Dr Rob Conkie
In this session you will hear from two experts in teaching Shakespeare.
- Writer and educator Tony Thompson focuses on Romeo and Juliet to explore what some of the many screen adaptations of this play reveal about its themes
and ideas.
- Dr Rob Conkie compares a very short section of the Macbeth script -- the shared lines of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after King Duncan's murder -- across
multiple film and television (including theatre productions filmed for TV) versions.
MORNING BREAKOUT SESSIONS
1A/ Film screening: Romeo and Juliet (Carlo Carlei, 2013, 118 min)
This sumptuous production of Romeo and Juliet has prompted some vociferous commentary from the critics. Find out what the fuss is about and consider its
potential as a talking point in your classroom.
1B/ Film screening: Macbeth (Justin Kurzel, 2015, 113min)
See Justin Kurzel’s darkly brilliant portrayal of Macbeth as a man dehumanised by war. Forging a connection between Shakespeare’s language and ideas
and the poetic possibilities of cinema, Macbeth is driven by the theme of loss and underscored by an unremitting pessimism about the nature of humanity.
1C/ Green screen workshop: interpret and create Shakespearean characters + ‘Sweding’ Shakespeare production workshop
Anna Kuch and Bridget Hanna from ACMI work with participants to explore and interpret Shakespeare’s characters and themes. In this interactive session,
participants bring Shakespeare’s characters to life on the green screen as well as making their own ‘sweded’ Shakespeare film. Learn techniques for
inspiring your students to engage creatively with Shakespearean interpretation.
1D Exploring Macbeth’s witches using iPads
ACMI’s Susan Bye leads the group in an hour-long iPad Activity: iPads offer a screening hub for students to work in small groups to compare different
screen interpretations of a single Shakespeare text. In this session, participants read, interpret and share ideas about the diverse representations of the
witches in Macbeth. At midday participants move to the Cube for Exploring Romeo and Juliet through Interpretation and Performance Part 2.
1E/ Exploring Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare in Performance
Part 1 – Terrie Waddell (Latrobe University) offers teachers a chance to revitalise their reading and teaching of Romeo and Juliet. With notions of the body
and emotion as a primary focus, Terrie explores Baz Luhrmann’s signature style through the strategy of haptic visuality: so that ‘the eyes themselves
function like organs of touch’. Terrie also highlights a range of other texts that will support your students’ engagement with the high stakes of this love story,
its motifs and visual possibilities.
Part 2 – Rob Conkie and theatre students from La Trobe University perform short extracts from Romeo and Juliet juxtaposing original theatrical practices
with those of contemporary film acting. This performance is followed by educator Tracey Bolton-Wood who draws on the role of the dramaturg to suggest a
range of creative and interpretative projects designed to bring a new depth and understanding to your students’ engagement with Shakespeare.
AFTERNOON BREAKOUT SESSIONS
2A/ Shakespeare on screens, in the classroom and online
Mike Nolan (La Trobe University), David McInnis (University of Melbourne) and Susan Bye (ACMI) offer insights into teaching Shakespeare's plays. Mike
explores interpretations and responses to Macbeth, David offers advice on the best online editions and performance databases of Shakespeare's plays and
Susan focuses on creative classroom strategies and resources.
2B/ Green Screen: Interpret and create Shakespearean characters
ACMI Educators work with participants to identify familiar and unexpected features of a range of Shakespearean characters. Performing in pairs or small
groups, they bring these characters to life on the green screen.
2C/ iPad Activity: Focus on Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet
Led by ACMI educator, Anna Kuch, participants work in pairs to explore key scenes, respond to prompts and share discoveries. This is a brilliant activity for
encouraging students to form their own interpretations and contribute ideas to class discussion.
2D/ Shakespeare, teen films and the language of cinema
Some critics describe teen film adaptations of Shakespeare as a ‘dumbing down’ of the complexity of the original plays, and talk about them as
opportunistically cashing in on the teen market. Through a close reading of the cinematic language of image and performance in 10 Things I Hate About You
and Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, Anna Dzenis (La Trobe University) identifies a visual and narrative sophistication that parallels Shakespeare’s semantic
complexity.
PARTICIPANTS
Anna Dzenis -- is a lecturer in the Media Arts program at La Trobe University. She
currently teaches the subjects Introduction to Screen + Sound, Contemporary World
Cinema and Screen Criticism but has taught screen literacy extensively to both tertiary
and high school students. Her current research is focused on the intersection between
film and visual arts, specifically the relations between cinema and photography. She is
also co-editor for the online journal of visual media and history Screening the Past
http://www.screeningthepast.com/
Anna Kuch -- is a passionate teacher, filmmaker and video editor. In her role as
Education Deliverer at ACMI, she works with students and teachers to encourage the
creative use of multimodal tools to tell engaging stories. Anna motivates students to
work individually and collaboratively as purposeful, innovative moving image creators
and has a particular interest in teaching Shakespeare.
Bridget Hanna -- is an Education Deliverer at the Australian Centre for the Moving
Image. She is an enthusiastic and committed creative arts producer, author and
educator. She uses her background in screen and cultural studies and screen literacy to
create original and practical approaches to developing the multimodal talents of young
people, enabling them to create and communicate meanings in innovative ways.
David McInnis -- is the Gerry Higgins Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies at the University
of Melbourne. His teaching interests include Shakespeare in performance and
adaptation.
Mike Nolan -- is a lecturer in the Department of Creative Arts and English at La Trobe
University Melbourne. His teaching and research interests include the literature,
especially plays, of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods; French plays of the
Seventeenth Century and recovering the voices of French peasants of this period. He
has recently completed a translation of the casket sonnets attributed to Mary, Queen of
Scots and is currently working on the prose and poetry of Robert Southwell.
Paul Salzman -- is an Emeritus Professor of English literature at La Trobe University.
He has written five books on sixteenth and seventeenth century literature and has also
produced seven editions. He has a special interest in how Renaissance literature was
written, read, performed, published and disseminated. He likes to think of Shakespeare's
plays as always open to multiple manifestations and interpretations from the moment
they were first written.
Rob Conkie -- is Senior Lecturer of Theatre and Drama at La Trobe University. His
teaching and research integrates practical and theoretical approaches to Shakespeare
in performance. He is the author of The Globe Theatre Project: Shakespeare and
Authenticity (2006) and Writing Performative Shakespeares: New Forms for
Performance Criticism (2016) and of numerous other book chapters and journals articles
in the world’s leading academic presses. His production of The Merry Wives of Windsor
will tour to the New Fortune Theatre in Perth before a two week season at
fortyfivedownstairs in April of this year.
Susan Bye -- is an Education Programmer at the Australian Centre for the Moving
Image. Her primary role is to support the teaching of film as text to secondary school
students, including Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. She has worked with the La Trobe
University Department of Creative Arts and English to develop and deliver the crossdisciplinary subject Shakespeare and the Moving Image.
Terrie Waddell -- is a Reader/Associate Professor of Media Arts, La Trobe University
(Australia). She focuses on the relationship between screen media, literature, gender,
popular culture and psychology. Her many publications include: Eavesdropping: The
Psychotherapist in Film and Television (co-editor Routledge, 2015), Wild/lives: Trickster,
Place and Liminality on Screen (Routledge, 2010), Mis/takes: Archetype, Myth and
Identity in Screen Fiction (Routledge, 2006), Lounge Critic: The Couch Theorist's
Companion (co-editor, ACMI, 2004); and Cultural Expressions of Evil and Wickedness:
Wrath, Sex, Crime (editor, Rodopi, 2003).
Tony Thompson -- is the author of Shakespeare: The Most Famous Man in London, an
entertaining, student-focused exploration of Shakespeare in context. His Shakespearefocused workshops and presentations are popular with both students and teachers. He
has also published Summer of Monsters,
a fictional account of Mary Shelley’s
circle in Geneva, and Vampires: The
Unhistory of the Undead.
Tracey Bolton-Wood -- Tracey BoltonWood -- is an experienced English,
Literature and Drama teacher, who
currently teaches at Sacred Heart
College, Kyneton. During her time at
VATE she presented a range of
professional development sessions to
support and inspire classroom practice.