Shaking things up

If William Shakespeare were still alive, he would have turned 446 years old on Friday.

If William Shakespeare were still alive, he would have turned 446 years old on Friday.  It seems only fitting that on Shakespeare’s birthday Plains and Paradise elementary school kids were treated to a condensed version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by Montana Shakes!, which is Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ newest educational outreach program.

The performance also entitled “All the West’s a Stage” showed selected scenes from the famous play and was made kid-friendly and managed to keep the youngsters attention throughout the 35-minute performance.

This is only the second year for the educational tour dedicated to elementary students.

“It was written by a couple named Will and Susan Dickerson who work for Montana Shakespeare and have young children so they wrote the play and put in the Shakespeare scenes.  The whole idea is we felt like we were leaving out that age demographic of kindergarten through fifth grade so we wanted to do something specifically for them,” said Tonya Andrews, Montana Shakes! actress.

After a successful three week pilot tour two years ago, Andrews said they are hoping to keep this tour going and make it an every year tour.

In addition to the short play, the three touring actors held a question and answer session, allowing curious kids to find out how heavy the props were or how the actors portrayed a battle scene.

Following this, the three actors held nine workshops for the students focusing on three specific topics.  The first workshop focused on Shakespeare’s poetry and language through imagination and visual exercises.

“We really get them to connect with Shakespeare’s language through their own imaginations through their bodies and their voices and we with the older kids we talk about the power of words and how powerful our language can be,” said Andrews.

The second work shop focuses on stage combat and teaches the kids how the actors do a fake face punch, hair pull and slap while emphasizing safety and trust that goes into fighting on stage.

The third workshop centers on costume design and the kids get to design costumes for a Midsummer Night’s Dream for mechanical characters such as a wall or a lion.

The Plains Woman’s Club brought this performance to Plains.