Outreach
Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach Program
Performing Shakespeare gives young people a chance to do something extraordinary. All children crave challenge. There is a desire within us all to excel at something difficult, to go for “great” instead of “good enough.” The plays of William Shakespeare are a wonderful vehicle for this quest for excellence.
Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach Students perform at the Winedale Barn
Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach, housed in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas, is a Language Arts enrichment program that provides opportunities for meaningful learning and academic excellence for Texas schoolchildren in grades K-12, with a special focus on both emerging and advanced readers in grades 3 through 8, and on students in low-income communities.
Through our many programs – classroom visits and workshops, in-school residencies, special “Day Out with Shakespeare” trips to the UT Winedale Historical Center, and the Festival of Play celebration at Winedale in late April – our aim is to empower young students by giving them the chance to make Shakespeare their own through study, memorization, interpretation and group performance. By doing this, we hope to foster in young people an early appreciation of poetic and heightened language; to give them a strengthened sense of self-confidence when speaking in front of others; and to provide a head start on a sometimes-daunting component of high school and university curriculum.
In our work we draw upon the resources and teaching legacy of the Shakespeare at Winedale program in the Department of English, created by Dr. James B. Ayres in 1970. We collaborate closely with campus teachers, providing them with ongoing professional development that can deepen and extend Language Arts instruction in remarkable ways for years to come.
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Your support makes Outreach possible.
Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach is supported by grants from the Applied Materials Foundation, the RBC Dain Fauscher Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the David M. Newberger Philanthropic Fund of the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation, and donors like you.
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For Schools
The core element of Outreach is our work in public school classrooms through our residency program. Each residency project is designed to lead a group of students in grades 3-6 through an ensemble exploration of Shakespeare’s language and storytelling, culminating in a class performance of a Shakespeare scene. Most of our introductory school visits are offered at no charge as a component of University Outreach. To take part in a residency, schools complete an application process and then work with the Outreach program on ways to help provide funding to support the residency. All residencies are aligned with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for K-6 students in Language Arts and Fine Arts.
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For Educators
In all our residency work, one of our goals is to give educators the tools they need to integrate the performance study of Shakespeare into their teaching in a way that fits their style, time constraints, subject interest, and grade level. We are available for consultation or discussion via email or phone about approaches to studying Shakespeare in the K-12 classroom -- anything from how to integrate a TEKS-based project into a 4th grade Language Arts curriculum to how to bring performance elements into a high school English Lit class. We are also available for Professional Development workshops for teachers in Texas school districts, in which we break down the steps for a “page-to-stage” Shakespeare experiences of varying complexity. No previous interest in or experience with Shakespeare is necessary!
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For Students
Our Playing Shakespeare workshops, held monthly during the fall and winter and occasionally during the summer, are two-hour open house sessions at our UT home base of Calhoun Hall on campus. These events are free to children ages 8-14, with parents welcome to attend. The workshops are an introduction to the “Winedale way” of exploring Shakespeare through play and teamwork.
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Meet Mr. Stromberger!
On-campus Coordinator for Shakespeare at Winedale Outreach is Clayton Stromberger, a graduate of the Winedale summer classes in 1983 and 1984. Mr. Stromberger has two decades of experience as an arts educator and elementary and middle school classroom teacher. For more information on ways the Outreach program can work with K-12 teachers and students, contact Clayton via email at cstromberger@austin.utexas.edu.
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