1. GENERAL HEADING: Exploring the Text

2. TITLE OF EXERCISE: "Word Work"

3. GOALS: To make words penetrate the unconscious to spark the imagination; to plumb the depth of meaning in speaking lines.

4. NUMBER OF STUDENTS: Individual coaching

5. EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES: None.

6. CLASS TIME NEEDED: 20 minutes

7. STEP-BY-STEP-DESCRIPTION:

Have a student look at words one at a time

Have student close his or her eyes and have them speak words with intense side-coaching. After every question, have the student repeat the word

Example:

Student: "BRASS"

Coach: What color is it? What does it feel like to touch? Feel the vowels and consonants.

Student: "STONE"

Coach: What does it look like? What does it feel like to touch? Have you ever thrown this at anyone? What's it like to be hit by one? Feel the vowels and consonants

Student: "EARTH"

Coach: What does it smell like? What's it like to put your hands in? What does it look like from a spaceship? Feel the vowels and consonants.

Student: "SEA"

Coach: What color is it? How does it feel on a hot day? Is it calm or stormy? When were you last by the sea?

Student: "MORTALITY"

Coach: "What do you see? Do you think about your own mortality? Would you like to live forever? Feel the consonants.

Student: "POWER"

Coach: Where do you feel it in your body? What makes you feel powerful? Are other people more powerful than you? What could you achieve with power?

Then have the student rest, relax, stretch, and shake it out and then recite:

Since brass nor stone nor earth nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o'ersways their power.

8. POINTS FOR OBSERVATION, DISCUSSION: N.A.

9. SOURCE/REFERENCE: Adapted loosely from Kristin Linklater's Freeing Shakespeare's Voice, NYC: Theatre Communications Group, 1992.

10. ADDITIONAL READING: N.A.

11. VARIATIONS: Endless!!!!