Fall Festivals set to return to Shakespeare

LENOX – What do you get when you give several hundred teenagers passionate text, boundless creative freedom, and dozens of gleaming broadswords? Shakespeare and Company’s 24th annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare.

This nationally-celebrated program places Shakespeare and Company education artists in 10 local schools, where they lead students on a nine-week exploration of how Shakespeare’s plays relate to their own lives and “hold a mirror up to nature.”

Built on the transformative power of William Shakespeare’s words, the fall festival seeks to engage students in vibrant, playful and poignant theatrical experiences.

The festival culminates with the students performing a Shakespeare play at their own schools multiple times and then again as part of a four-day marathon of plays at Shakespeare and Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse.

This year’s marathon of student performances runs Nov. 15-18, which is the weekend before Thanksgiving. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for students per performance. A festival pass, which includes all 10 plays, may also be purchased for $60 for adults and $30 for students.

Lenox Memorial Middle and High School will perform The Winter’s Tale on Nov. 15 and Lee Middle and High School will perform Henry V on Nov. 16.

Other participating high schools include Chatham High School, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Taconic High School, Springfield Central High School, Mt. Greylock Regional High School, Taconic Hills High School, Mt. Everett Regional High School and North Andover High School.

Led by Director of Education Kevin G. Coleman, Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware, and School Programs Manager Alexandra Lincoln, the fall festival is a celebration rather than a competition.

Students are encouraged to delve into Shakespeare’s works, unpacking the language and savoring the humor, intensity and transcendent beauty of plays written over 400 years ago. Daily rehearsals focus on students’ personal responses to the text, creating the possibility for a personal connection to language students previously may have written off as inaccessible.

Students also learn stage combat, technical theatre, stage management, publicity techniques and dance during their festival experience. Shakespeare and Company’s set, prop, technical and costume departments collaborate with the education artists and students to create a unique design for each play.

The company’s award-winning education program is one of the most extensive theatre-in-education programs in the Northeast and has reached millions of students since 1978 with innovative performances, workshops and residencies.

In addition to the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, other S&Co. programs include The Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare, Shakespeare in the Courts, Shakespeare and Young Company, Riotous Youth, Shakespeare in our Schools, Workshops for Teachers and Actors and the National Institute on Teaching Shakespeare, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Guided by Director of Education Kevin G. Coleman and Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware, the education program received the Commonwealth Award in 2005, the highest award for excellence in the arts, sciences and humanities given by the State of Massachusetts. It was also the subject of a two-year study by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education (Project Zero), which recommended national replication.

The education program has been identified by the Arts Education Partnership and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities as a Champion of Change.

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on November 8, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment,Education News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry