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Students attend annual Shakespeare festival in Oregon
Students read lines during a prologue to a production of Love’s Labors Lost. Actors share insights into Shakespeare and his works during the prologues at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
October 7, 2011
The first weekend of October, seventeen students travelled to Ashland, Oregon to attend the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Students, along with trip chaperones Pauline Paskali and Jason Berry, stayed Friday through Sunday and watched Love’s Labors Lost, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, and The African Company Presents Richard III.
“Attending the festival allows students the experience of seeing plays rather than reading them […] and interacting not only with local patrons but also national actors,” Berry said. “Engaging the students in conversation about the plays and the visceral pleasure the students receive from the productions make it incredibly worthwhile.”
In addition to the productions, those attending the trip took a backstage tour of the three stages used in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and participated in workshops and prologues, in which actors in the festival shared insights into the productions and Shakespeare.
“I thought that the trip was wonderful,” said Anna Kendall (10). “It’s not just about Shakespeare, it’s about [theater and] the art of very talented people. It was a really enjoyable experience.”
Brian Demar Jones, who played the Duke of Gloucester in Henry IV, Part Two and the forester and attendant in Love’s Labors Lost, led one of the workshops.
“I think arts and general education put together helps create a very well-rounded student,” Jones said. “Students will be able to have an open mind and a sense of culture, a sense of acceptance of other people and being able to express and be free with their own imagination.”
Paskali noted the benefits of experiencing the festival for students.
“The Festival’s creative choices in lighting, costumes, props, and the sets resurrect the plays to create an experience replicating that of Shakespeare’s Elizabethans,” Paskali said. “Shakespeare comes to life in Ashland.”
