Shakespeare Out Loud Teachers - My intention in creating this series was to encourage young people to practice 12 vacuumed plays of Shakespeare, out loud. This practice and refinement of accessible Shakespearean texts, teaches the stories clearly, and allows students to play with, and invent, some of the most creative dramatic language ever written. If the new vocabulary and syntax is invented instead of recited, it is much more likely to be re-used in everyday speech. The new audio-plays will provide a clear oral path through these texts. Like anything else, oral communicators are improved through practice. Shakespeare is best understood through practice and refinement.
Concentrate, at first, on why characters say what they do, why they choose each w0rd. Keep refining and orally practicing the thoughts that cause the words, and the plays will teach themselves. Productions will also block themselves through oral understanding and practice: the feet are easy to organize when the minds are clear. Also, accept that rhythm is a literary concept rarely discussed and never practised in professional rehearsals. Skilled actors make their text sound like heightened and invented everyday speech. That is why I formatted the words of Shakespeare not in prose or verse, but in thoughts; and why students and actors play them so effortlessly.


Blocking monologues
Speaking verse