Educators Introduction

Welcome to the McCarter Audience Guide educator materials for Tartuffe. This guide has been assembled to complement both your students’ theater-going experience and your class curriculum by offering a variety of interesting and edifying activities for both pre-show and post-performance instruction and enjoyment.

This production of Molière’s classic comedy, as seen through the unique gaze of director Daniel Fish, affords opportunities for enrichment in historical and cultural studies, language arts, theater and media/visual arts. Students can explore the themes presented by the playwright in his original work, and consider and critique those themes as emphasized and interpreted by a contemporary director in a production more than three centuries after the play was first penned; make investigations into the world of the French Renaissance, the rich historical period in which Molière lived, worked, garnered attention and created controversy; ponder the work of the theatrical translator and survey different English-language translations of the original French text; as well as creatively contemplate many of these topics and themes in imaginative, artistic activities.  Teachers can also link their classroom directly with McCarter Theatre via the new McCarter Theatre Blog (www.mccarter.org/blog), which can be used to pose questions and post comments regarding the production as it moves from pre-production into rehearsal and performance.

Our student audiences are often our favorite audiences at McCarter, and we encourage you and your students to join us for a live and lively conversation with members of the cast after the performance. Our visiting artists are always impressed with the preparation and thoughtfulness of McCarter’s young audiences, and the post-performance discussion offers a unique opportunity for students to engage intellectually with professional theater practitioners. We look forward to seeing all of you for a wonderful discussion about Tartuffe.