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PRE-SHOW PREPARATION
AND
ACTIVITIES
Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.
PRE-SHOW MATERIALS
PRE-SHOW PREPARATION, QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION, AND ACTIVITIES
Pick and choose among the following assignments, discussion topics, and activities to introduce your students
to William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and its theatrical origins and themes, as well as to engage their
imaginations and creativity before they see the production.
THE WINTER’S TALE: WEB SITE BASICS.
Explore the following informational offerings on McCarter’s The Winter’s Tale web site (mccarter.org/
wintersTale/index.html) with your students:

McCarter’s The Winter’s Tale simple plot summary

A character map of “the two worlds of The Winter’s Tale” featuring David Zinn’s costume designs
for the production

Some “Thoughts on The Winter’s Tale” by Director Rebecca Taichman

Professional biographies of The Winter’s Tale’s cast and creative team

An overview of the nature of Shakespeare’s Romances

A primer on Shakespearean Verse
Investigating these various resources will not only pique student interest, but may also spark and fuel full-class
and small-group discussion before coming to the theater.
ACTIVITY: A QUOTABLE WINTER’S TALE SYNOPSIS.
This synopsis and accompanying Shakespearean quotation cards are designed for educators who are unable to
incorporate a full reading or scene study of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale into their curriculum, but who can find
fifteen to twenty minutes of class time to introduce the essential story and characters of the play before coming to
McCarter to experience the production.
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
Print out a copy of the synopsis and quotation cards. You might want to print out enough copies
of the synopsis for your students so they can follow along in the course of the activity. You will only
need one copy of the quotation cards.

This activity will likely be most enjoyable for students if you divide them up into groups and then
distribute the quotation cards among the groups with each group being responsible for multiple
quotations. (Alternately, you could hand out cards individually to students.)

Prompt groups to prepare/rehearse dramatic renditions of their quotations. Groups can deliver the
lines as a chorus, in duos/trios, or as solos, but everyone should speak Shakespeare’s words
aloud. Encourage students to physicalize their line or lines in some way.

After a quick rehearsal period, ask everyone to stand in a circle. You should stand in the circle too
and read aloud the synopsis of the story, calling out the numbers of the quotations where indicated
and pausing for the group or student responsible for the quotation. Before beginning, indicate to
students that when their quotation number is called, they should go quickly into the center of the
circle to perform it. As the leader, try to keep a quick and steady pace—the activity is much more
fun when it moves right along.

Following the activity, if time permits, you might:
Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.
PRE-SHOW MATERIALS

Ask students as a group to recount the essential story of The Winter’s Tale in 7 to 8
bulleted plot points written on the board.

Ask students if there were any aspects of the story (e.g., characters, relationships,
plot points, or any other detail) that specifically drew their attention. Ask them to
explain what compelled, interested, surprised, confused, or held meaning for them.

Ask students to consider Shakespeare’s language as captured on the quotation
cards. Questions for further discussion might include:

Is there anything you noticed about Shakespeare’s language or character voices?

Where you confused by any of the words, phrases you encountered in the
quotations?

How might we go about discerning the meanings of the words or phrases we don’t
understand—what tools might we use?

You might consider assigning students a list of words or phrases from the activity to
research for meaning for the next day’s class.
This activity has been borrowed and adapted with permission by Folger Shakespeare Library Education.
EXPLORING
THE
THEMES
OF
THE WINTER’S TALE BEFORE
THE
PERFORMANCE
The points for a discussion on the themes of The Winter’s Tale below are designed for teachers able to
incorporate into their pre-performance curriculum:
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
a reading of William Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale

the above “Activity: A Quotable Winter’s Tale Synopsis,” or

McCarter’s The Winter’s Tale simple plot summary

With the essential story of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale under their belts, ask your students
to brainstorm a list of themes on the board. Themes might include: Jealousy and its destructive
effects; honesty as the mark of a true friend; loyalty at odds with morality; betrayal as the undoing
of friendship; the rivalry between friendship and love/marriage; the repentance and suffering that
follows a grave error or unjust act; the power of forgiveness; the triumph of time, i.e., time’s power
to overturn, transform, and/or heal; love’s power and limitations; estrangement between husband
and wife, fathers and children; generational conflict, especially between fathers and children;
oppressive and possessive misogyny; male annoyance with bold, defiant women; and benevolent
and forgiving women.

Then ask your students if they find an intellectual or personal connection (either in terms of their
own experience or regarding someone that they know) to any of the themes of The Winter’s Tale.
Have them write/journal about one theme with which they personally connect. If appropriate,
students may volunteer to share their thematic connection with the rest of the class for purposes
of discussion.

Next ask your students to recall and make connections to other plays or works of literature (or they
have read, studied, or seen in performance with themes similar to those of The Winter’s Tale. (They
also might refer to film for their examples.)

Homework suggestion: Extend this activity into a mini-research assignment by having your students
investigate the plots/stories of Shakespeare’s other non-historical plays, especially the romances
(i.e., Pericles, The Tempest, and Cymbeline). You might make it a competition to see who can
come up with the most thematic connections.
Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.
PRE-SHOW MATERIALS
AN ACTOR PREPARES: SCENES
FROM
THE WINTER’S TALE
Have your students explore how an actor prepares to play one of Shakespeare’s characters by having them study,
rehearse, and present scenes from The Winter’s Tale.

First, if you haven’t already, share the plot summary, character map, interview and articles included
on the McCarter The Winter’s Tale web site with your students.

Next, break your class up into scene-study duos, trios, and/or quartets to cover the following
excerpted scenes:
Scene excerpt #1—Act I, scene 2 with Leontes, Polixenes, and Hermione
Scene excerpt #2—Act 1, scene 2 with Leontes and Camillo
Scene excerpt #3—Act 2, scene 3 with Leontes, Paulina, Antigonus, and a Lord
Scene excerpt #4—Act 3, scene 2 with Hermione, Leontes, and an Officer
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
Groups of two should work on excerpt #2 (Leontes and Camillo); groups of three on excerpts #1
(Leontes, Polixenes, and Hermione) and #4 (Hermione, Leontes, and an Officer); and groups of
four on excerpt #3 (Leontes, Paulina, Antigonus, and a Lord). The gender of a character in relation
to a student-actor’s gender is unimportant—remember that in Shakespeare’s time, male actors
played both male and female characters to great effect and acclaim.

Scene-study groups should read their scene aloud once together before getting up to stage it to get
a sense of the characters, their language, and the arc of the scene, as well as for the purposes of
comprehension and clarity.

You may even wish to have your students do some preliminary paraphrasing work on their
characters’ speeches to ensure their understanding of the dramatic content. This paraphrasing
grid may prove a helpful tool.

Refer students whose characters speak in iambic pentameter to the primer on Shakespearean
Verse on McCarter’s The Winter’s Tale web site.

Student-actors should prepare/rehearse their scene for a script-in-hand performance for the class.

Encourage your students to look for clues in Shakespeare’s text that might inform them about how
their characters talk and move and with what energy they invest in what they say and how they
react to what others say.

Following scene performances, lead students in a discussion of their experience rehearsing and
performing a dramatic moment from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Questions might include:

What are the pleasures and challenges of staging and performing a scene from
William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale?

What insights, if any, regarding the play or the characters did you get from staging
the scene and playing the characters?

Did anything about your character feel real and/or relatable to you in the acting of him
or her? Explain your reaction.

What was your experience of working with Shakespeare’s language? What effect, if
any, did the verse (i.e., if your character spoke in verse) have upon how you
portrayed your character? What clues did you find in your character’s language that
gave you insight into how to play him or her?

Compare the experience of speaking or hearing Shakespeare’s text out loud as
opposed to silently reading it.

Was there any moment that felt strange or awkward in bringing your character to life?
Explain your reaction.
Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.
PRE-SHOW MATERIALS
IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
AND
THE WINTER’S TALE
To prepare your students for The Winter’s Tale and to deepen their level of understanding of and appreciation
for the life, work, and theatrical and cultural influence of the Bard of Avon, have your student research, either
in groups or individually, the following topics:

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William Shakespeare:
 Biography
 Early Life, Family and Education
 In London and Early Theatrical Career
 Late Career (c. 1600 to death)
Robert Greene’s Pandosto: The Triumph of Time
Production History of The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeare's London (Overview)
Major Influences on and Sources for Shakespeare the Playwright
Elizabethan Acting Troupes—Types and Basic Structure
Shakespeare's Troupe: Lord Chamberlain's Men (later called the King's Men)
The Elizabeth Public Playhouse
Shakespeare's Tragedies (Overview)
Shakespeare’s Comedies (Overview)
Shakespeare's Histories (Overview)
Shakespearean Romance—Characteristics and Conventions
Shakespeare's Other Romances:
 Cymbeline
 The Tempest
Shakespeare's Sonnets (Overview)
The First Folio and Shakespeare's Historical Influence
Have your students teach one another about their individual or group topics vial oral and illustrated (i.e., posters or
PowerPoint) reports. Following the presentations, ask your students to reflect upon their research process and
discoveries.
A THEATER REVIEWER PREPARES
A theater critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member,” whose job is to report the news, in
detail, of a play’s production and performance through active and descriptive language for a target audience of
readers (e.g., their peers, their community, or those interested in the Arts). To prepare your students to write an
accurate, insightful and compelling theater review following their attendance at the performance of The Winter’s
Tale, prime them for the task by discussing in advance the three basic elements of a theatrical review: reportage,
analysis and judgment.
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
Reportage is concerned with the basic information of the production, or the journalist’s “four
w’s” (i.e., who, what, where, when), as well as the elements of production, which include the
text, setting, costumes, lighting, sound, acting and directing (see the Theater Reviewer’s
Checklist). When reporting upon these observable phenomena of production, the reviewer’s
approach should be factual, descriptive and objective; any reference to quality or
effectiveness should be reserved for the analysis section of the review.

With analysis the theater reviewer segues into the realm of the subjective and attempts to
interpret the artistic choices made by the director and designers and the effectiveness not of
these choices; specific moments, ideas and images from the production are considered in the
analysis.
Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.
PRE-SHOW MATERIALS

Judgment involves the reviewer’s opinion as to whether the director’s and designers’
intentions were realized, and if their collaborative, artistic endeavor was ultimately a
worthwhile one. Theater reviewers always back up their opinions with reasons, evidence and
details.
Remind your students that the goal of a theater reviewer is “to see accurately, describe fully, think clearly, and
then (and only then) to judge fairly the merits of the work” (Thaiss and Davis, Writing for the Theatre,
1999). Proper analytical preparation before the show and active listening and viewing during will result in the
effective writing and crafting of their reviews.
We are so looking forward to sharing this very
special production of Shakespeare’s
The Winter’s Tale
with you and your students.
See you at the show!
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Created by the McCarter Theatre Education Department. 2013.