RECENT NEWS: 

The Viola Project has recently entered into a partnership with City Lit Theatre. This wonderful theatre, located in the Bryn Mawr Historic district, will be co-sponsoring all of our fall workshops.  We look forward to rehearsing and performing on the City Lit stage!  Learn more about City Lit at www.citylit.org.

Villains! On November 18, The Viola Project celebrated Shakespeare's most dastardly creations! Students honed their acting skills, delved into the rich Elizabethan language and learned the subtle arts of villainy with Richard III, Lady Macbeth, and Iago. And on November 19, The Viola Project students, parents, teachers and friends attended Polarity Ensemble Theatre's performance of Othello in Mask at the Side Studio!

Sonnet Slam! On October 14, students who love acting and writing got to work on both in our Sonnet Slam! This workshop combined Shakespeare's sonnets, free-writes throughout the day, a FrankenSonnet in which all the students collaborated to create a perfect sonnet, and a performance of original -- as well as 400-year-old-- poetry! Later in the weekend, The Viola Project hosted The Action to the Word, a poetry slam, at Marrakech Expresso, featuring performances by professional slam poets Yolanda Androzzo (Sister Yo) and Molly Meacham. Students and friends read their own poetry during the open mic!

Capulet vs. Montague! On September 23, students got their feud on with The Viola Project! This one-day workshop, based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," transported students to the scorching streets of Verona, gave them a place in the Capulet (or Montague) clan, and showcased their hard work in scenes from the play! Later in the weekend, students, parents, siblings, and teachers attended the House Theatre production of Hatfield and McCoy, to see how the themes in Romeo and Juliet applied to the most famous American family feud!

Heroines: A Shakespearean Action Adventure! On July 19, The Viola Project students learned how to create and tell stories theatrically using their own imaginations, a few simple props, and a little inspiration from Shakespeare. With only seven hours of preparation and rehearsal, parents and friends witnessed a performance of Group Adventures (inspired by the students' own Personal Journeys developed earlier in the day) and Shakespearean Off-Stage Events (exploring stylistically the events which Shakespeare found too difficult to put on stage, choosing instead to have his characters describe in monologues). 

Fight! On April 22nd, along with Kathrynne Rosen from Babes with Blades, The Viola Project held a stage combat workshop! Participants learned the basics of creating the illusion of violence on stage while emphasizing partnership, cooperation and safety! The day culminated in a performance of eight scenes with Shakespeare's most contentious characters.

Three Hours with Macbeth, The Viola Project Style: On March 20, students at The Willows Academy in Des Plaines reviewed the differences between iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter and prose using physicalized rhythm, explored the idea of characters controlling each other with the Super Crazy Awesome Wizard Game, created soundscapes using evocative phrases from Macbeth, experienced the effect on an audience that different staging arrangements have (such as theatre in the round, transverse stage, proscenium, and thrust), and finally staged the Witch Scene using the theatre arrangement of their choice. Does this sound like something your students would enjoy? Let us know! 

On March 11, at "The Play's The Thing." students explored physical characters, learned about secret motives onstage, and enacted the entirety of Hamlet in 10 minutes (well, 15), in addition to creating a dumbshow and staging seven different scenes from the play, which we then performed for parents and friends. 

TVP's Second Annual Summer Shakespeare Workshop 2005 held at Sprout Gifted in Lincoln Park: Students learned about Shakespearean language, explored different ways to create a character through voice and movement, and performed fun and challenging scenes from Macbeth, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, and Romeo and Juliet for parents and friends at Chase Park Theatre in August. The summer workshop students also enjoyed a one-day workshop with Babes with Blades' Kat Rosen, who taught us how to flourish weapons, "ride the hook," stomp on feet, fall down, and deliver punches-- all while remaining completely safe. Take that, Petrucchio!

One-Day Workshops: With support from 3Pear Studios and the Three Arts Club of Chicago, TVP presented three one-day workshops in 2005: Magic and Malice in April, Shipwrecked! in October, and Are All The People Mad? in December. In addition, TVP led a one-day workshop at St. Scholastica in March with three different drama classes, culminating in a school assembly performance. For more information on how to bring TVP to your school, click here!

The Viola Project was accepted for inclusion in the 2006-2008 Arts-in-Education (AIE) Artists Roster, a selective database of arts education programs compiled by the Illinois Arts Council!