A&E

Shakespeare Festival

Maddy Schecter-Gross

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(photo from Columbia High School website)

Columbia High School (CHS)’s 16th Annual Shakespeare Festival was an all day event that took place on Friday, April 20 in the school’s auditorium. The festival occurs every spring at CHS. There were many performances by CHS students from various english classes. The school’s step team, Infinite Steppers, performed before the Shakespeare skits began. Performances included skits, dancing, singing, and rapping to various Shakespeare poems. Each english class periods had different classes that were performing. Plays such as Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream were some of the many Shakespeare plays performed by students.

“It’s such a fun way to show our appreciation for Shakespeare’s work,” says Natalia Moss ‘19. Many students, such as Moss, were required to perform depending on their english classes. Classes such as Drama and Poetry and World Literature required students to perform in the Shakespeare Festival. Students that performed in the festival also received Shakespeare t-shirts and chocolate bars.

Students rehearsed and practiced their lines during their english class periods before the festival began. They also dressed up in costumes and used props such as a swords, chairs, and tables. Many students enjoyed the show but some didn’t enjoy it as much. Will Altenor ‘18 said, “I couldn’t really hear them because of they weren’t using a microphone and I was sitting in the back. And some students were reading from the script.” Students that sat in the back of the auditorium like Altenor, had trouble hearing the play. Altenor felt like some of the students that read off of the script weren’t really into their roles.

After the plays were over, some of the audience got selected to guess the Shakespeare book and win chocolate bars. The play was engaging and got the audience to appreciate Shakespeare’s work. Reading Shakespeare in class can be disengaging but seeing it in the act helped students understand it better.