ALLISON PAJOR
Scholarship
Below are various pieces of scholarship: lectures, panels, and publications.
Lectures and Panels
Colloquy
"Teach it but how": On-Your-Feet Pedagogical Approaches for Shakespeare
2023 Blackfriars Conference (American Shakespeare Center)
Colloquy Abstract: This colloquy session focuses on pedagogical approaches for teaching Shakespeare in the classroom. The goal of the session is to share teaching techniques and foster conversation about how to effectively engage students in Shakespeare education through physical exercises. As colloquy leader, I was responsible for organizing and running the colloquy session.
Colloquy
Bodies On Stage: Staging Disability
2017 Blackfriars Conference (American Shakespeare Center)
Colloquy Abstract: How do we explore staging disability? From Othello’s epilepsy to the mental health of King Lear and the physical deformity of Richard III, these plays present a challenge by prompting us to attempt to portray disability on stage. Why does Shakespeare include an epileptic fit during Othello? Is King Lear suffering from dementia? Does Macbeth suffer from PTSD? We invite conversation on the ways in which actors present disability on stage. As part of this panel, I discussed my approach to performing characters that experience madness in Shakespeare's plays (Lady Macbeth and Jailer's Daughter).
Guest Lecture
Twelfth Night: Or Why is There So Much Music in This Play?
This lecture examined the importance of music in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, focusing specifically on Feste's role in setting the tone throughout a production.
James Madison University (2016)
Publications
‘The Boldness of Your Speech’: Paulina as an Agent of Reconciliation in The Motley Shakespeare Players’ The Winter’s Tale (2018)
Published in Motley Minded: Stitching Together Early Modern Theatre from the Fabric of Scholarship (2018)
In William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Paulina resonates with contemporary audiences as an “audacious lady” for her boldness of speech and defiance of male authority. Yet cutting The Winter’s Tale for a 90-minute production inevitably re-shapes elements of her character. Through a dramaturgical study of the play’s source material and early modern conduct literature in conversation with a performance study of Paulina, this thesis examines Paulina’s function within The Winter’s Tale in both the full and cut text. “The Boldness of Your Speech” explores Paulina as a figure of reconciliation between Leontes and his family, between a playwright’s addition to the narrative and director’s subtraction from the text, and between scholarship and practice. Paulina in The Motley Shakespeare Players’ 2017-18 production of The Winter’s Tale speaks to contemporary feminist movements, establishes a woman who acts as much as she speaks, and gives the actor agency through the need for physical, rather than verbal, representations of elements of Paulina’s character.
Little ShakesPeers: Balancing Language and Play in the Early Elementary Classroom (2017)
In recent years, there has been a push to begin introducing students to Shakespeare at a younger age. Current Shakespeare educational outreach programs for early elementary students choose to focus on either language or play, emphasizing one while allowing the other to take a backseat. Little ShakesPeers seeks to provide a teaching scheme for introducing kindergarten students to Shakespeare, using activities that balance the emphasis on language and play. By creating an engaging, playful approach that also places Shakespeare’s language at the forefront, teachers can reshape how children experience Shakespeare and perhaps help lessen feelings of intimidation or boredom when students re-encounter Shakespeare later in their educational careers.