Despite not having real fairies, the things happening in our workshop the past two weeks feel like magic!
After a round of “jump in and go for it” auditions here at NAU-Yavapai, we have our version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream cast and our students are working hard to make these characters come alive. Our cast has jumped into the Viewpoints exercises, just-nearly aced a quiz on all things Shakespeare and the Globe, and are tackling the language with not a whiff of the usual “Ugh…Shakespeare” apathy usually emanating from kids their age.
Even more inspiring, they are looking hard at Shakespeare’s words and then applying them critically to the world around them…which is like a teacher’s ultimate dream. Here are a few choice comments I’ve heard over the past couple of days:
“I see a lot of allusion to The Avengers in this speech here…”
“Did you know that the capital of Montana is Helena? I know, right? Shakespearean influence even in the Northwestern U.S.A.!”
And in discussing tactics and obstacles for each character, we asked our Oberon to imagine his conflict with Titania over the changeling boy as if his mom wouldn’t give him the thing that he absolutely wanted most in life, to which he dryly replied, “Well I guess I won’t get that Ferrari anytime soon.”
We will be posting periodic updates as we start assembling the show (we go up in 22 days!!!) and post some pictures of the kiddos in action! We hope that you follow along on this journey with us and find your way to First Congregational Church on May 3 or May 4 to experience our A Midsummer Night’s Dream! Keep an eye out for tickets soon!
…but in the meantime, our Bottom mask just arrived…
