Rapspeare has been designed to inspire students to not only explore Shakespeare’s verse, but also break any preconceived stereotypes regarding the bard using contemporary rap and hip hop beats. Pupils will discover how to connect with Elizabethan language by smashing apart the iambic pentameter and learning to articulate Shakespeare in a fresh and exciting new way.
What happens when you mix the Bard with Rap? You get Rapspeare – A high energy drama workshop that fuses Shakespeare’s timeless words with the rhythm and style of rap and hip hop beats! Students dive into famous speeches from plays like Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night, learning to deliver them with swagger, beats, and bold physicality. Suddenly, the witches’ chant or a love sonnet feels less like dusty old literature and more like a track straight out of a freestyle battle.
Through call-and-response games, dance-inspired warmups, and group performance challenges, pupils discover that Shakespeare and rap have more in common than they think – rhythm, rhyme, big gestures, and powerful storytelling. Whether they’re making a “pop video” of their rap, beatboxing, or devising their own lyrical spin, students leave with a newfound confidence in both Shakespeare and themselves.
Created initially by actor and facilitator Oliver Mason, inspired from his West End stage performance on ‘A Bommity of Errors’, and then reimagined by our own resident lead arts educator Adrian Benn, Rapspeare is more than just a workshop, it’s a cultural mash-up that bridges centuries, smashes stereotypes, and proves that Shakespeare isn’t boring, he’s bard!
Schools book Rapspeare as an exciting way to celebrate World Book Day, Book Week, Shakespeare Week or Enrichment Days.
Each hour-long drama workshop caters for a class of 30 from KS1 & KS2 and can culminate in an end of day rap off with all groups in attendance.
For further information on this programme, including costings, please fill in the form below.
