In this exercise you are going to explore the start of the play and look at the witches’ prophecies by exploring the different playing choices that can be made. You will need the Act 1, Scene 3 Resource. 

• Invite students to form a circle and provide each of them with a copy of the Act 1 Scene 3 extract from the resource. 

• Asking them to read the scene through once, changing reader at every punctuation mark. Sometimes this means students will only read one or two words but it allows everyone to read. 

• Explain to them that Duncan and the Thane of Cawdor are alive and well and Macbeth is not the King or Thane of Cawdor. 

• Discuss with students what the witches might look like. Could they be elderly women, young children, figments of Macbeth’s imagination or aspects of the environment on the heath?  

• Divide students into five groups and allocate each group a section of the scene. 

• Ask them to decide on an interpretation of the witches that they will use in their section and allow them time to create a short performance of the segment, thinking about how both Macbeth and Banquo are reacting and interacting with the witches as part of their performance. 

• Encourage each group to then perform the scene, in order, until they have seen the entire scene played out. 

• Explain to students that a messenger, Ross, arrives with another Lord and brings Macbeth news that the Thane of Cawdor has been killed and Macbeth is going to be made Thane of Cawdor. 

• Ask the last group to perform their final part of the scene again, this time imaging that Macbeth and Banquo learn this news. How does it affect them? How might they respond? How would it change the way Macbeth and Banquo speak and feel about the prophecies?  

• Reflect with students on the state that they think Macbeth and Banquo are in at the end of this scene. What might be going through Macbeth’s head? What might be going through Banquo’s head? 

We are going to focus on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 7. By this stage of the play it is implied that they have previously talked and made a plan to kill King Duncan.  

Shakespeare does not give us the scene where that dialogue takes place. To improvises this scene is a useful technique for actors to build up an understanding of the couple’s relationship, who leads the plan, what are the discussions?  

• Hand out students a pen and paper and explain that they are going to imagine and write a 10-line scene, where Lady Macbeth lays out her plan to kill King Duncan and persuades Macbeth that it is the right course of action.  

• Make clear what you know and what you imagine about their relationship with some reference to their childless situation.   

• Ask them to think about the following: 

• Where to place it? 

• What time of day it is? 

• How long before the murder it takes place 

• Include images and references to the themes of ambition, the supernatural and fate.  

• Once students have written the scene ask them to get into pairs. 

• Each pair reads back their scene to each other and asks questions to clarify meaning. 

• Once each pair is satisfied with their two scripts as them to make groups of 4.   

• Share each scene with the group and choose one scene to perform. 

• Cast 2 people as the character and the other 2 will act as directors.  

• Ask the directors to choose where the characters enter from and what their relationship is like at this moment. 

• Give groups 5 minutes to rehearse each scene and ask to share. 

• How has writing this scene enabled us to understand the relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth? 

The aim of this exercise is to re-create the scene of King Duncan getting murdered. 

It enables students to think about interpretive choices and think about character motivations and intentions. You will need the Act 2, Scene 3 Resource. 

• Sit students in a circle and discuss the murder sequence of King Duncan. Asking What time does it take place? What is happening elsewhere in the castle? Where in the castle does it take place? How do Lady Macbeth and Macbeth plan to murder the king and get away with it?  

• Read out to the students the text from Act 2, Scene 3 Resource. Ask students to reflect on words and phrases from the text.  

• Read the text again but this time the students close their eyes and repeat aloud any words that stand out to them.  

• Organise students into groups of five. In these small groups they are going to improvise the murder of King Duncan.There are two rules:  

•  Each student may only speak once.  

• Duncan should wake before Macbeth kills him and say something to Macbeth. 

• Ask each group to show their work. 

• Ask the audience to note how the staging choices affect the audience’s view of the action. 

• Select a group to perform their piece in dumb show (without any sound) in the centre of the circle.   

• Task the rest of the students to create a soundscape of the sounds that Macbeth might have heard during the scene. The soundscape must have a clear beginning, middle and end. 

• Invite one student to add in the line of text, ‘Sleep no more, Macbeth doth murder sleep.’  

• As an extension ask the students who have been selected to perform their piece as dumb show to add the following lines: 

• Macbeth: This is a sorry sight. 

• Lady Macbeth: A foolish though to say a sorry sight.  

• Ask the students who are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to rehearse this brief exchange, concentrating on the physical relationships. Where are they in relation to each other? Where are the daggers? Why doesn’t she see them until later in the scene? How do they move in relation to each other? 

• Now put this sequence together by starting with the sounds, then add the action, and finally add the lines of text indicating volume level.   

• Ask Macbeth and Lady Macbeth how they felt during the sequence: did the atmosphere created inform their reading of the scene?  

• What is the purpose of improvising around the text in this way? Does this improvisation process make any difference to the understanding of character? Why would actors explore character in this way?

In this exercise students will be asked to look at the Iambic Pentameter of a scene and see how the rhythm can inform us about the characters. You will need the Act 2 Scene 2 Resource. Watch the Scene in Performance with Christopher Eccleston as Macbeth and Niamh Cusack as Lady Macbeth in Polly Findlay's 2018 production.

• Sit students in pairs and label them A and B. A’s are Lady Macbeth and B’s are Macbeth.  

• Ask them to read through the scene, back to back but with pauses imagining listening out for sounds of the castle stirring. 

• Introduce the students to iambic rhythm. For example its 10 beats and you could say 

• I AM 

• I AM 

• I AM 

• I AM 

• I AM 

• Clap the rhythm, finding the ‘heartbeat’ driving through the words.  

• Ask students to apply this rhythm to the scene by beating through the iambic patterns, discovering where the 10 beats fit and where they don’t. 

• Ask students to consider what interruptions to the rhythm might add to our understanding of the character speaking, considering why characters might share a rhythm line.   

• How can we capture the discoveries that we make when speaking the text? 

• Watch RSC Voice Practitioner Nia Lynn define what we mean by Iambic Pentameter and explore, together with RSC Actors, what it can reveal about characters and their emotions.