TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1 Art That Lives 2 Bard’s Bio 2 The First Folio 3 <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s England 4 The Renaissance <strong>Theater</strong> 5 Courtyard-style <strong>Theater</strong> 6 Timelines 8 <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> Dramatis Personae 10 The Story 11 Act-by-Act Synopsis 11 <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Sources 13 Timeline: The Revolution 16 Treason in the House of Tudor 17 Brutus and the Republic 18 Scholars’ Perspectives In States Unborn 21 Love, Particular and General 22 Politics as Usual 23 What the Critics Say 25 A Play Comes to Life <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> in performance 33 A Conversation with the Director 37 A Conversation with the Fight Choreographer 40 Strategies for Using Film to Teach <strong>Shakespeare</strong> 42 Classroom Activities Before You Read the Play 48 As You Read the Play 52 After You Read the Play 70 Preparing for the Performance 74 Back in the Classroom 76 Warm-Ups 78 Suggested Readings 83 Techno <strong>Shakespeare</strong> 86 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This Teacher Handbook grew out of a team effort of teachers past and present, <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong> artists, interns, educators, and scholars. Intern Mariana Green revised and updated a previous edition of this <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> handbook for this production. <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong> gratefully acknowledges the groundbreaking and indelible work of Dr. Rex Gibson and the Cambridge School <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Series, and The Folger <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Institute, whose contributions to the field of teaching have helped shape our own work through the years. ©<strong>2013</strong>, <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong> Barbara Gaines Artistic Director Criss Henderson Executive Director <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong> is <strong>Chicago</strong>’s professional theater dedicated to the works of William <strong>Shakespeare</strong>. Founded as <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Repertory in 1986, the company moved to its seven-story home on Navy Pier in 1999. In its Elizabethan-style courtyard theater, 500 seats on three levels wrap around a deep thrust stage—with only nine rows separating the farthest seat from the stage. <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> also features a flexible 180-seat black box studio theater, a Teacher Resource Center, and a <strong>Shakespeare</strong> specialty bookstall. Now in its twenty-sixth season, the <strong>Theater</strong> has produced nearly the entire <strong>Shakespeare</strong> canon: All’s Well That Ends Well, Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Cymbeline, Hamlet, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong>, King John, King Lear, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Macbeth, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Pericles, Richard II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and The Winter’s Tale. <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong> was the 2008 recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award. <strong>Chicago</strong>’s Jeff Awards year after year have honored the <strong>Theater</strong>, including repeated awards for Best Production and Best Director, the two highest honors in <strong>Chicago</strong> theater. Since <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s founding, its programming for young audiences has been an essential element in the realization of its mission. Team <strong>Shakespeare</strong> supports education in our schools, where <strong>Shakespeare</strong> is part of every required curriculum. As a theater within a multicultural city, we are committed to bringing <strong>Shakespeare</strong> to a young and ethnically diverse audience of 40,000 students each year. Team <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s programming includes free teacher workshops, student matinees of main stage shows, post-performance discussions, comprehensive teacher handbooks, and an abridged, original production each year of one of the “curriculum plays.” Team <strong>Shakespeare</strong> offers a region-wide forum for new vision and enthusiasm for teaching <strong>Shakespeare</strong> in our schools. This year, the Folger <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Library in Washington, DC, honored that vision with the prestigious <strong>Shakespeare</strong> Steward Award. The 2012-<strong>2013</strong> Season offers a student matinee series for three of <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Shakespeare</strong> <strong>Theater</strong>’s full-length productions: in the winter, The School for Lies, a new adaptation by David Ives of Molière’s The Misanthrope; and in the spring, <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s <strong>Julius</strong> <strong>Caesar</strong> and Henry VIII. Also this winter, a 75-minute abridged version of Romeo and Juliet will be performed at the <strong>Theater</strong> on Navy Pier and will tour to schools and theaters across the region. We hope that you and your students will enjoy our work—and <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s creative genius brought to life on stage. ✪ Marilyn J Halperin Director of Education Jason Harrington Education Outreach Manager Molly Topper Learning Programs Manager Lydia Dreyer, Mariana Green Education Interns
written by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE directed by JONATHAN MUNBY ulius <strong>Caesar</strong>, written 400 years ago about people living 2,000 years ago, has the danger of seeming very far away. Of having very little similarity to us. Of being about things we don’t think about much. But its words sound too familiar and don’t go away. “Freedom! Liberty! Tyranny is dead!"—we’ve heard them all as we watch pictures flash across the television screen. <strong>Shakespeare</strong> shows us power: power that some have, that others fear—and want—and that a mass of people searching for a hero has given away. We ought to recognize in <strong>Shakespeare</strong>’s Rome some of the most difficult questions we confront living in our own politically divisive world. ✪