Shakespeare may have written his plays 400 years ago, but his work is more relevant than ever, said Laura Howell.
"You cannot go a day without hearing something relating to Shakespeare," noted Howell, the executive artistic director of The People's Shakespeare Project. Believing in the relevance of the writer, Howell created ShakesPeers, a high school Shakespeare festival, last year. This year's event was held virtually on March 22 and featured 16 students from Elizabethtown Area High School, Linden Hall, J.P. McCaskey High School, and The Stone Independent School.
Student participants enjoyed a comedy workshop while teachers met with Howell to discuss and share teaching techniques for Shakespeare. The festival also featured an intensive monologue workshop as well as an opportunity for students to perform for professional acting coaches. The event concluded with participants performing monologues and scenes from Shakespeare comedies.
Howell said the festival had been something she wanted to do for years, ever since she served as a teacher and theater director at Lancaster Country Day School in the early 2000s. She realized her students responded positively to Shakespeare when they had the chance to read his works out loud.
"They loved the challenge of it. They loved the language," she recalled. "Shakespeare's words are incredibly powerful when you put them in your mouth and, as I like to say, 'chew on it.' When you walk and talk and act it the way it's supposed to be done and you actually participate in it, it's wonderful."
The festival has offered students an opportunity to connect with other like-minded peers, Howell noted. "I love the sharing that occurs between strangers," she said. "These are kids who have never met each other before, but they love Shakespeare, they love theater, and they love acting. Their world broadens by doing something like this. They see they are not alone in their passion. They can share it. They can learn from each other and inspire each other."
ShakesPeers is just one initiative of The People's Shakespeare Project, which Howell founded in 2006. The project also offers Camp Will, an acting program for middle and high school students, which will run from Monday, July 12, to Friday, July 30, this year, as well as public performances of Shakespeare plays.
Howell said all of her projects provide an opportunity for people to see the impact Shakespeare continues to make today.
"The emotions are honest and raw and large and real," she explained. "He may have written in the 1600s, but he's writing about emotions we're still dealing with today. He's writing about the human condition."
This year's ShakesPeers festival was recorded and can be viewed by searching for "The People's Shakespeare Project" on YouTube or visiting http://bit.ly/Shakespeers.
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