Local students rock the Bard

The festival now involved over 500 students from almost a dozen local high schools.
Photo contributed
The festival now involved over 500 students from almost a dozen local high schools.

By Michael Kelley
mkelley@berkshirerecord.net

A fall tradition in the Berkshires is turning 20.
 
Shakespeare & Company and local schools will celebrate  the 20th year of the company’s educational program — Fall Festival of Shakespeare — in November.
 
Kevin Colemen, S&Co Director of Education, said it is hard to believe that the festival is already 20 years old.
 
What started out as a student’s suggestion has now progressed into a four-day Shakespearean extravaganza on S&Co’s campus, involving over 500 students from 10 area high schools. This year’s festival takes place at S&Co’s campus from Nov. 20 to Nov. 23.
 
Coleman said the idea of the Festival started in 1988 when Lenox High School and Mt. Greylock High School were both staging Shakespeare plays. A student from Lenox expressed an interest in seeing Mt. Greylock’s production of “Romeo and Juliet.”
 
Conversely, Mt. Greylock students sat in on a performance of another of Shakespeare’s classics, Lenox’s The Taming of the Shrew, which was directed by Coleman.
 
From there, said Judge Paul Perachi, then principal at Lenox and now judge in the juvenile court system, word started getting out about S&Co’s work in the school that soon other schools and a host of students were interested, starting the Festival-style format.
 
Over the years, the goal of the festival hasn’t changed—the bringing together of students from area high schools to celebrate the Bard in a noncompetitive way—but the magnitude has, now involving over 500 students from almost a dozen local high schools.
 
Coleman said the festival has emerged on its own, growing each year and increasing in popularity.
 
 “A number of years back we finally developed the ethic and aesthetic of how we were going to work with the kids, why we were going to work with them in that way and how we were going to go about directing the kids,” he said. “We are very interested in firing up the imagination of the students, taking their ideas and seeing how it would work. It is a very different style of directing.”
 
In recent years, because of such interest in participation, Coleman said they have had to think outside the box a little bit in order to get everyone involved.
 
Ideas have included adding characters, females playing male roles, or in the case of Lee’s production of “Macbeth” last year, casting multiple students in the same role.
 
Doing so, Coleman said, offers everyone who wants to act, a chance to play a meaningful role. Acting, however, is hardly the only way to get involved. Since the plays can only logistically include 30 actors, other students get involved by building sets, controlling lights or sound for the show or serving as stage managers.
 
It is not uncommon, Coleman said, to have 70 to 80 students involved in any one production.
 
While the students year after year have been excited about Fall Festival coming around again, so too do the schools, who see it as a valuable educational tool for  their students.
 
“Often times the schools have to really fight for this,” he said. “There are some really strong advocates in the schools that really want their kids to have this experience for so many reasons.”
 
The Festival for many serves as their first experience experiencing theater as an educational tool. While it may be the participants first, it certainly isn’t their last. Many students return year after year and some even come back to work with S&Co in the future. 
 
“Plays aren’t a foreign thing to them anymore,” Coleman said. “They’ll go to the theater now and see shows. It’s like a whole new world has opened up to them.”
 
There are now parents who were involved in the festival years ago and whose children are participating now, Coleman said.
 
Both Perachi and Coleman said it is the things beyond theater that the participants learn, including self confidence, teamwork and public speaking skills, that makes the program a success.
 
“I think they learn important lessons in cooperation and all the other important life skills you can’t teach in a classroom.” Coleman said.
 
It is through the Festival that Lee students junior JoJo McDonald and sophomore Ben Hover have learned important lessons about themselves.
 
“It gets you out there,” Hover said. “It gets you over your shyness. I know it did for me.”
 
“It helped me become comfortable with people looking at me.” McDonald said. “It helped me become comfortable with myself.”
 
Both Hover and McDonald plan to continue acting throughout high school, but past that, they are still undecided.
 
“Maybe I will become an English teacher and make everyone love Shakespeare as much as I do,” McDonald said.
 
The performances at the high schools will occur as Lee and Lenox present their plays on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14 at 7 p.m.  Monument will present its play Nov. 14 and 15 at 7 p.m. and Mt. Everett will present its play at 7:30 on the same nights.
 
All 10 high schools will stage their plays at S&Co Nov. 20 to  Nov. 23.

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