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Much Ado About Shakespeare!

Creative Commons: Patty Mooney
Detail, Wall of Romeo and Juliet, Verona

Students at Florence Carlton High School in the Bitterroot Valley have been rehearsing a scene from William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. But this isn’t a traditional interpretation. Derk Schmidt, who teaches English and drama at FCHS, says they’ve chosen an unlikely setting for the story.
Derk Schmidt: There’s an ancient rivalry of two Coney Island hot dog places in downtown Detroit that we used to set the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. And then modernized it for setting and costume, but we kept all the language the same.

Chérie Newman: Sometimes that language includes strange words like “pewling.” Conner Copeland, the actor playing Lord Capulet, had to do some research.

Conner Copeland: I actually did look up the definition of pewling when I was reading the script the first time through just so I could know how to deliver that line. And a “pewling wretch” is basically like a whining person.

CN: Jessica Dufresne plays Juliet.

Jessica Dufresne: The language is just so like eloquent and it’s really awesome to be able to like speak that so fluently and smoothly. By the end of the play it’s completely natural to speak in Shakespeare. But this also is like a lot more serious than the plays we’ve done in the past.

Students from Florence Carlton High School rehearse William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet: Aimee Blackwell, Conner Copeland, Jessica Dufresne, and Jenny Barnhill. Derk Schmidt (far right) is their English and drama teacher.

CN: Especially serious is the part where Romeo and Juliet commit suicide. But again, say Schmidt, Dufresne, and Copeland, they’ve chosen an untraditional interpretation.

DS: We decided that the suicide would be in the background.  So we didn’t really present a love story. We presented a feud. And rather than Romeo and Juliet being the highlighted lovers who die in this romantic suicide fashion, they were the victims of a feud.
 
JD: My biggest thought is that we needed to make sure that we weren’t glorifying the suicide aspect of it, because that’s such an issue with like especially teens. We just wanted to make sure we weren’t sending the wrong message. We’re like, No, they’re not going to find love in death, they’re not going to be eternally bonded. It’s like they’re both gone and they left everything behind.

CC: We also tried to make it really clear that they didn’t really fix anything by killing themselves. We wanted to really underline that it’s sad and it’s kind of pathetic that this feud caused these two young people to lose their lives and in the end it never really changed that much anyway.

CN: Jessica Dufresne and Conner Copeland are two of nine students from Florence Carlton High School who will perform Shakespeare in the Mansfield Library on the University of Montana campus tomorrow morning. Friday also includes performances by students from Glacier and Belt high schools. The student actors are part of a two-day Shakespeare Conference. Beverly Ann Chin is Chair of UM’s English Department and Conference Chair. I asked her why William Shakespeare, a man who died 400 years ago, is relevant to 21st-century Montana.  

Beverly Ann Chin:  Shakespeare is a master of language, and of lessons about our lives. He’s timeless. Today, we still grapple with the issues of jealousy, betrayal, power, authority, twists of fate, and love triangles—or rectangles, if you will. So Shakespeare has something for every person at every age.

CN: The students from Belt and their teacher, Jeff Ross—a University of Montana alum—recently received great news.

BAC: His students and Jeff’s mentorship have done so well that they were invited to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017. So next August, he and his students from Belt, Montana, will be in Edinburgh, Scotland. And we are so proud and pleased of that achievement.

CN: In case you don’t know, Belt is located about 20 miles east and south of Great Falls. Approximately 600 people live there. On Saturday, the Shakespeare Conference will present about 20 workshops with names like

BAC: “Shakespeare on Your Feet:  Theatre Exercises in the Classroom,” “Examining Tragic Realization, Fate, & Existentialism:  Hamlet and McBeth,” “Kick The Box: A Strategy for Teaching Blank Verse,” “Using Shakespeare to Implement Montana Core Standards,”  “Teach Caesar!”—that one’s going to be very interesting; it will compare the true life of Caesar with Shakespeare’s interpretation of Caesar. We have teachers locally, as well as across the state, coming together to share with each other what works, what inspires, what helps students read more creatively, more critically, more empathetically, Shakespeare. Teachers may also receive OPI renewal credits on Saturday. Everything will be interactive. It will be practical—based on engaging students as learners, as thinkers, and as performers. And the workshops are all free, they’re open to the public, and there’s no registration required.

STUDENT PERFORMANCES OF SHAKESPEARE

Friday, May 20
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Mansfield Library, University of Montana
See the schedule

BEST PRACTICES FOR TEACHING SHAKESPEARE

Saturday, May 21
8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
UM's University Center, third floor
See the schedule

The First Folio exhibition will be on display in Montana Museum of Art & Culture and open to the public through May 31, 2016. More information:  406-243-2019

Full schedule of events

The tour is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and by the support of Google.org, Vinton and Sigrid Cerf, the British Council, and other generous donors.

Chérie Newman is a former arts and humanities producer and on-air host for Montana Public Radio, and a freelance writer. She founded and previously hosted a weekly literary program, The Write Question, which continues to air on several public radio stations; it is also available online at PRX.org and MTPR.org.
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