Shakespeare and The Experience Of It All

This five minute film charts the remarkable journey with Shakespeare of a class of 15 year olds from Queensbridge Performing and Visual Arts College in Birmingham as part of the RSC's national schools programme, The Learning and Performance Network. 

The film is a behind-the-scenes record of the impact on the students, their teacher and parents as they first encounter Shakespeare and The Winter's Tale, rehearse an extract for a local Shakespeare festival involving 5 other schools and then perform it on the stage of our Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It shows the impact on young people of making a deep connection to Shakespeare.

I love the spirit and the effort of this.  There is such wealth to Shakespeare, which is relevant and applicable to our lives now.  I've read and watched Shakespeare for 35 years now, and was absolutely enthralled with the text and looked forward to their staging with delight.  Both text and staging were formal, but what I've come to appreciate more are the process, the learning, and the journey of Shakespeare.  What the high schoolers in The Learning and Performance Network do certainly doesn't have to be formal or even skilled per se.  What is most important is the experience of it all.