At the Folger, March kicks off the annual festival season. Beginning next week, students and their teachers from 56 secondary schools in and around DC will come to tread the boards of the Folger theater. What a celebration of Shakespeare’s language! Fourteen hundred students will present scenes, abridged versions (using Shakespeare’s language), and montages from 19 of the plays during the seven day festival. It’s not competitive. There are no first, second, or third place finishes. Everyone wins. It’s a celebration. The atmosphere at the Library is high energy, to be sure, but it’s only the beginning. In May, students from 30 elementary schools from the area and as many as 10 from Capitol Hill will participate in the Emily Jordan Folger Children’s Festival and Shakespeare At School. Having hundreds of students in grades 3-6 speaking Shakespeare’s lines on stage, performing scenes from the plays — and understanding what’s happening in those scenes — is incredibly exciting, and not to be missed. Are your students participating in a festival this spring? What have they chosen to perform?
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