Twelfth Night teacher's guide - California Shakespeare Theater

People Pictures
Overview: Participants will use pictures as inspiration in creating characters, and interact with others as their characters.
They will try to determine which picture the other participants used for their inspiration after interacting with them.
Grade: 3-8
Goal: To literally be in someone else’s shoes, using the body and the voice to become that character.
State Standards: English Comprehension & Analysis §2; Literary Response & Analysis §3; Listening & Speaking
Applications §1, §2.
Outcomes: Students will have a kinesthetic experience of being another person, will be able to imaginatively inhabit that
person’s point of view, and have an expansive social experience within the imaginative boundaries of the game.
Note: You might try this activity before you even begin discussing Twelfth Night and use pictures that are of the characters
or very like the characters in the play. Without the initial burden of preconceived ideas about the text and the always-implied
“great literature” shadow of Shakespeare, fresh discoveries about the personalities in the play might be made.
Materials: Gather pictures of people, at least as many as there are participants.
Notes on Pictures: Get a wide variety of people in settings and attitudes that lend themselves to the imagination. (It is
better to not have celebrities the students will know.)
Activity:
Participants spread themselves out in the room, so that each person has enough space to think without distractions. The
leader passes out a picture to each participant, explaining, “DO NOT let anyone else, even me, see your picture. You have
three minutes to look at the person in your picture and become that person. Decide what kind of personality he or she has,
how old the person is, what kind of life he or she leads, etc. Use the picture to help you decide—are there details about
the person’s clothes, surroundings, or face which give you ideas? Try to create a “story” for this person, as well as a voice,
mannerisms, attitude. All of your characters will attend a party at the end of the three minutes.” The participants should not
talk to one another before the three minutes are up. At the end of the three minutes, the participants hand in their pictures.
As soon as they hand in the picture, they transform into their character. The leader should explain that they need to talk to
the other characters, as if they are at a party. The participants should attempt to talk to everyone else, and try to remember
things about the other characters. The party lasts five to ten minutes, depending on the number of participants. At the
end of this time, the leader asks everyone to discard their characters and become themselves. The leader then shows the
participants the pictures that were used, and asks the group to identify whose character matches with the picture. (Don’t
tell the participants that this will happen ahead of time. The temptation of “fooling” everyone is too great to resist for some
people, and these people will purposefully make their character unlike their picture if they know there will be guessing.)
Reflection:
Start a discussion about the game with your students by asking the following:
- How did you feel when you were being your character?
- Did you find out more about your character by the way others treated you? What specifically?
- Were you drawn to anyone at the party? Why?
- Did you want to avoid certain people? Why?
If your students have not read the play, you might want to write down their answers and save the pictures to connect to
when you begin formal study of Twelfth Night. If your students are familiar with the play, you could ask:
- Did any of these people at this party remind you of the characters in Twelfth Night?
- Which character do you think you were?
- Now that you have an idea of which character you were playing in this game, did you find out anything about him or
her that surprised you? For instance, if you were Malvolio, did you find other parts to his character than just being rigid
and judgmental?
- Did the relationships that happened at the party mirror the relationships in the play or were they different?
- Adapted from www.creativedrama.com
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