Shakespeare's characters: a deep dive into All's Well & Hamlet

Shakespeare's characters range from the tokenistic to the deeply complex. There are no character outlines or biogs at the beginning of his plays and with hundreds of years of interpretation - how will you play your version?

In this analytical & practical workshop Emma will walk you through a series of techniques to dive into the plays that will give you lots of information about character.

Dive into the floral waters with Ophelia from Hamlet & tussle with the problematic 'hero' and 'heroine' in All's Well to uncover how Shakespeare fills his language with ways to support his actors.

Through extracts from All's Well that Ends Well & Hamlet) Emma will guide you through some text analysis tips and practical exercises to help inform how you might choose/perform a role by exploring:

• presence & abscene
• silence & speech
• friends & enemies
• vocabulary & language
• space & objects

This 2 hour, small group workshop, will look at one play per hour. With text, context, practise & sharing (optional) you will try, explore & apply some tools that will build your knowledge and confidence towards a strong foundation in approaching Shakespeare's plays.

The workshops will take place in the Theatre at , on Shaftsbury Square, Belfast.

All you need to bring is a pen and a copy of the provided Shakespeare scripts that you can annotate.

About Emma Copland

Emma Copland is a Scottish theatre director, maker & facilitator based between London and Belfast. She trained at CSSD with Katie Mitchell, The Shakespeare Institute, Queen's University Belfast & Lyric Drama Studio with Anna Newell. An Artsdepot Resident 25/26, &TDNI INVEST 24/25 Artist she is mentored by Erica Whyman and has recently shadowed Tamara Harvey at RSC.

Her theatre credits as Director: Fuscardi’s (Druid Debuts, Mick Lally Theatre), Liz’s Story:The Right to be Heard (Black Box Belfast), Lady Macbeth Uncut (Drayton Arms), Deaf as a Post (Culturlann Belfast, Barons Court, Mac DAFNI), Slippery When Wet (Barons Court Theatre, Naughton Theatre, Bewley’s Cafe Theatre), Cooking With Carrie (Drayton Arms), Failing Better, Belmont Road (site-specific), Winter Tales (Barons Court Theatre), Faster than the Flies (Black Box Theatre), Entra, Silvio! (Ulster Hall Group Space), I Left My Heart (Hampden Park), Much Ado (Crescent Arts Centre), Two Gents (Crescent Arts Centre) and several youth theatre productions including 3 years of shows with Primary Shakespeare Company, Shady Business (Prissian Theatre), Emilia (Prissian Theatre), The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Prissian Theatre), Second Person Narrative (Prissian Theatre), Tristan & Yseult (Prissian Theatre) and The Boy Preference (JAGS Studio Theatre). Credits as an Assistant Director include: Romeo & Juliet (Lyric Belfast), Teechers (touring), The Border Game (touring), Iyalode of Eti (Arcola Theatre), Titans (Titanic Belfast), A Better Boy (MV Confiance Barge), 1 in 5 (Limavady Workhouse) and Perfect (Brian Friel Theatre).

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