Does Shakespeare Matter? Calling Young Actors!

ezrabarnes

"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

Children will be exposed to a foreign language in school: Shakespearean English. They will read a Shakespeare play and almost certainly find themselves baffled and challenged. Without a caring guide to lead them they can be put off the Bard forever.

But this must not be so! Shakespeare’s plays are full of the most joyous characters your child will ever encounter, and his observations about being human grow and stay with us for a lifetime. His stories are grand, sweeping adventures. And, always, his plays are rooted in a love for nature and abiding curiosity for the world around us.

The question is, how do we help our children access the glories that await them in Shakespeare's plays?

The answer is by giving them the opportunity to experience a program like the Shakespeare Playground. Renee Bucciarelli, a wonderfully perceptive Shakespeare teacher, has structured her workshop in a way that gives children the chance to viscerally understand Shakespeare from the inside out.

*They learn about Elizabethan life by making their own costumes.

*They learn about stagecraft and why Shakespeare wrote the way he did.

*They learn about the blessing and curse of being a lord or a lady, and the hard won joy of carving one’s own way.

*They learn the magic of words, and how language and the ability to find self-expression is the key to self fulfillment.

I cannot recommend the Shakespeare Playground too highly. I have seen scores of students taught by Renee Bucciarelli in these sessions blossom with the joy of finding and sharing a personal connection to the greatest humanist they will ever encounter: William Shakespeare.

"Give me your hands, if we be friends."

THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYSHOP (tm) presents

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

June 8-12, Kane Street Synagogue, Cobble Hill, for kids 8-13

www.youngactorsbrooklyn.com

prodigalson

Back in the 1960s and 70s every kid in school learned about Shakespeare. His works were readily quoted just about every day on tv, radio, or in newspapers. In fact one of the most popular categories in the "Jeopardy" tv show dealt with his works.

Remember how several news media types back then did not appreciate how certain basketball playing black kids referred to themselves in the third person? The youths learned this usage from reading Shakespeare and because so many of them were from Brooklyn which, as you know, is King's County. After all, what the heck is the fun of reading this stuff is you can't use it on a daily basis?

Good to see old Shakey making a comeback.

Now if we could just bring back the old horse-and-buggy along with trolleys back to the streets of God's Country ...