Performing Shakespeare

On-demand Acting Course

Learn how to perform Shakespeare with confidence and ease.

Course Sections

1. Methodology: Tools, not rules

We look at a set of over 20 keys that can be employed to unlock the text for its performance

35 min.

2. Tools at work

Though not written as a performative text, many of the tools discussed in the previous section could be easily demonstrated at work in this short, 14 line sonnet.

42 min.

3. One on One: Choruses, Prologues, and Epilogues

We look at the primary relationship in the plays, between the actor/storyteller and the audience.

43 min.

4. No Man Is an Island: Soliloquy

We look at the particularly intimate relationship between the actor, as a character in the play, and the audience.

45 min.

5. Action, Reaction, and Transaction: Dialogue

We examine how the text propels the actors through action and reaction to “transact” a scene, and the triangular relationship between, actor, actor, and audience.

52 min.

6. Conclusion

Summarizing four of the most useful tools for performing Shakespeare.

4 min.

This Course Includes:

This Workshop is Best For

Actors

Students

Teachers

BFA and MFA Applicants

Shakespeare Lovers

Now Only $89

(Instead of $199 – Expires on May 31, 2023)

We offer a 7-day risk free satisfaction guarantee. If you didn’t like the course, get a full refund, no questions asked.

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Meet your teacher

The Course is led by Peter Francis James, a two-time Obie award winner, as well as Drama Desk and Lortel awarded actor. He has worked with co-founders of the RSC, Peter Hall (as Oberon in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), and with John Barton in workshops in New York and Oxford.

He is a native of the south side of Chicago, and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. From 2000 to 2020, Peter was the resident acting teacher, for Shakespeare, at the Yale School of Drama.

Here is what students had to say about this course:

"The tools you gave me have helped me navigate my way with more confidence, imagination, and range than I ever thought I was capable of. I simply would not be the actor I am today without your teachings."

"I went from never doing Shakespeare ever – to playing Macbeth after one semester with that guy. I owe him a lot."

"Peter is magical in the classroom – so vivid and exciting and provocative."

"Peter Francis James, your intellect, appetite for life, and passion for the work has so deeply infected me."

"Thank you, Peter, for empowering me and a generation at DGSD, and for doing it with such joy and humor. I am forever grateful to you."

"Your teachings were absolutely fundamental to my growth as an actor (and a human being)."

"You literally changed the course of my life. You are, hands down, one of the best acting teachers with whom I’ve had the privilege to study. Your artistry and passion are beyond compare. I will always hold dear your lessons."

"I am so thankful for your invaluable guidance in the art and for the exemplary role model that you have been to me and countless others in just being the artist that you are. I am definitely a different person for having met you."

"Brilliant, insightful, sensitive, generous, funny as hell, and a dear, trusted voice of reason and taste in the midst of a maelstrom of trends, you dear Peter, are irreplaceable."

“Your class made a huge and positive difference for me. It was a real life-changer. I’ll be forever indebted to you and what you taught me.”

Now Only $89

(Instead of $199 – Expires on May 31, 2023)

We offer a 7-day risk free satisfaction guarantee. If you didn’t like the course, get a full refund, no questions asked.

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