Department of Classics and Ancient History, Humanities Building, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL
Thirty teachers who attended the Ancient Drama Festival in 2024 were asked about the significance of treating performance as key when teaching ancient Greek drama in relation to their own work in the classroom.
Analysis of responses to this question found that the majority of the teachers felt that there was great intrinsic value in teaching ancient Greek drama by taking performance into account, and that attending the Festival had stimulated them to think about the plays in new and exciting ways that would shape their future teaching.
Respondents reported that the Festival made them think again about the critical status quo that has framed their teaching of Greek drama, which tends to forget that the texts were intended for performance rather than for consumption on the page. They also valued the opportunity to take their pupils to see live theatre and noted that attending theatre is by definition an immersive social experience, not a reading exercise. The majority of teachers also emphasised the importance of sound and spectacle in engaging pupils with Greek drama and in making the plays resonate for them. They recognised that teaching ancient Greek drama through performance made the plays far more relevant and impactful for young people.
Other respondents mentioned that the festival illuminated the plays' cultural, political and historical contexts and alerted pupils to the creative possibilities available to dramatists and actors in antiquity. They saw this as one of the key insights afforded by teaching Greek drama through performance. Several pointed to performance as a means of noticing important elements of the play which pupils might not otherwise pick up through reading, such as the configurations of space in the theatre, staging, costume, actors’ non-verbal interactions on stage, movement, sound, and audience reactions.
In their responses, teachers frequently appreciated the festival’s focus on the multiple visual possibilities for staging the plays, and said that this helped open students’ minds to the notion that these canonical texts can be interpreted in many different ways, and are always re-interpreted in being re-performed. They also emphasized that this realisation would aid classroom discussion and enhance pupils’ ability to respond to assessment questions creatively and effectively.
A number of respondents raised points about the current OCR syllabus. One longer response explicitly mentioned how “content heavy” the OCR specification is and how, as a consequence of this, their teaching has to focus upon what the students will be examined on. Another respondent also mentioned the OCR exam board in their response, but stated that they had appreciated the opportunity for their pupils to learn about and experience a play which is not on the specification.
The most commonly recurring requests from teachers for additional teaching and learning resources were for materials which would enable them to directly embed the use and consideration of performance into their classroom practice (or as a homework exercise) when teaching ancient Greek drama. They mentioned materials such as bitesize videos, written commentaries and critical editions which would enable them to bring performance into the classroom and show it to pupils while teaching or when pupils are preparing for lessons. A strong emphasis was placed upon the creation of resources which would enable pupils to have the experience of directing and acting scenes from Greek drama with their classmates, and to participate in performing the works themselves as part of the learning process.
Teachers also requested the preservation and curation of resources created through the Festival in one accessible site. They expressed a need for resources (short video lectures, academic bibliographies) which would provide more academic context in ways which would benefit both teachers looking to expand their subject knowledge, and pupils looking to undertake their own research to deepen their understanding of ancient history, language and culture. A smaller sub-set of requests related to “niche” learning materials, for example versions of plays in ancient Greek with music and sound effects to foreground the phonic aspects of the play. Three teachers suggested that custom-made resources for younger pupils which focused on plays and performance could be a good way of introducing children to the study of the ancient world.
Several teachers stressed in their responses that materials should be aligned with or easily incorporable into the OCR exam board syllabus and the specification they are expected to teach to for OCR GCSE and A-Level.
Key trends in responses to this section are as follows: in the majority of responses, the teachers expressed that they very much enjoyed the experience of seeing the play itself, and found the Festival as a whole a highly educational experience. Another key trend was that the teachers were impacted by the new critical paradigm showcased at the festival, and came away convinced that performance is a core part of experiencing and understanding Greek drama. They were also keen to bring this paradigm shift into their teaching. This shows that the primary objective of the 2024 Festival in terms of raising awareness of performance’s value and importance in teaching ancient Greek drama was achieved.
A substantial number of teachers also noted in their responses that attending the Festival had enhanced their subject knowledge in various ways. In particular, teachers said that they had come away with an enhanced knowledge of concepts like polyphony, better appreciation of the context in which the plays were created and first performed, and a much greater awareness both of all the elements which go into a performance such as space, costume, props, staging, acting, and of how an audience might respond to the spectacle in front of them.
Several respondents reflected in more detail on their own teaching practice and how it would develop following the Festival. Teachers noted that they now better know “how to use plays effectively for A Level Classics” , and that the festival also had value for GCSE students. They also recognised that the way they approached the plays in the classroom would change radically, as “things like costume and what is seen [on stage]… should have as much time spent on them as the plot etc.”. Another wrote that they now have improved “understanding [of] a play I knew [they knew] little about, giving the ability to incorporate it into discussion of issues”.
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Department of Classics and Ancient History, Humanities Building, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL