I love Shakespeare!

But I didn't used to.

In college, I wanted to love Shakespeare so I took a class. I enjoyed reading the plays and sonnets, but they were confusing and attending class didn't help much. The professor gave long, rather dry lectures. There was almost no discussion during class and the professor never had us watch (or even suggested that we watch) a live or film version of a Shakespeare play. Frankly, this is baffling to me! The very best way to understand Shakespeare is to see it. The more you watch, the more you understand.

I know that even way back then, there were many Shakespeare plays available on film or video. I also know that there was at least one Shakespeare play performed at BYU that semester. I know because I decided to go see it. I don't remember which one it was and I didn't understand all of it, but I know I enjoyed it. I remember thinking, why is my best experience with Shakespeare completely separate from my class?!

This school year I am blessed to mentor high school students who have studied Shakespeare for at least three years, many of them for much longer. In the past I have worked with younger, less experienced students. This is my first year mentoring the advanced students and it is exciting! They've watched their older siblings perform in A Midsummer Night's Dream or Twelfth Night or Comedy of Errors. They've seen more than 20 (or 30!) Shakespeare movies. They've written a dozen or more papers about the plays they've studied and discussed. They've acted in several Shakespearean comedies. Last month, they worked together to re-write a Shakespearean tragedy in modern language and then performed it after only 5 rehearsals!

Today we started rehearsals for Two Gentlemen of Verona. This is our major production for the year. We will have three performances at the theater and then travel to several different locations to perform the show. (We still have room for one more performance during our tour. If you know of a local upper-elementary class or two that would like to have us come and perform during the week of March 28th, just let me know.)

This was only our first rehearsal, but I was amazed. These kids get Shakespeare. It is part of them! I can't wait to see where they are after seven weeks of rehearsal.

P.S. None of my own children were at today's rehearsal, so I'm not just a bragging mom. Well at least not in this post.