Shakespeare In Action

National Shakespeare Youth Festival – Acting

Congratulations to all Festival participants entered in the Acting category – we were all so impressed by the quality of your performances!

The Country Day School performs “Hamlet” (4.5) – winners in the 2012 Festival Acting division.  Peter Smith, adjudicator, commended the performance for being cohesive, having rising action, and being well-acted.  L-R: Alex Gruspier, Lukas Weese, Kelsey Houston, and Ilana Khani. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

The Country Day School performs “Hamlet” (4.5). L-R: Alex Gruspier, Lukas Weese, Kelsey Houston, Ilana Khani, and Jai Singh. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

The Country Day School performs “Hamlet” (4.5). L-R: Alex Gruspier, Jai Singh, Lukas Weese, Ilana Khani, and Kelsey Houston. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

Erin District High School performs “Macbeth” (1.3). Peter Smith, adjudicator, commended these three witches for their eerie performance and shrill – yet startlingly clear – voices. L-R: Katrina Kastelic, Keary Rodgers, and Jordyn Bell. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

Erin District High School performs “Macbeth” (1.3). L-R: Claire Leblanc, Kieran Klassen, Andres Caravantes, and Keiran Papp. Keiran Papp earned a Shakespeare Young Company for Teens scholarship for his stellar Macbeth. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

Monarch Park Collegiate performs “Much Ado About Nothing” (2.3). L-R: Naomi Brown, Alex Kilian, and Mythili Nair. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

Monarch Park Collegiate performs “Much Ado About Nothing” (2.3). Elena Wood earned a Shakespeare Young Company for Teens scholarship for her charming and nuanced Benedick. Photo: Shakespeare in Action

National Shakespeare Youth Festival Update – Acting

On Saturday, May 14th, Shakespeare in Action held its annual Youth Festival finals…
…and the results are in! 

Left to right: Elmira District Secondary School's Emeka Agada and Sam Lanesmith perform in Taming of the Shrew (2.1) - winners in the Acting division at this year's Festival!

Elmira District Secondary School's Candace Kuepfer and Sam Lanesmith perform in Taming of the Shrew (2.1) - winners at this year's Festival!

Left to right: E.L. Crossley Secondary School's Laura Gemmel, Nik Duliban, Jessica Elliott, and Abbey Carr peform in Twelfth Night (2.3) - highly commendable performance in this year's Festival!

 

Left to right: E.L. Crossley Secondary School's Jessical Elliott, Laura Gemmel, Katie Sawchuk, Nik Duliban, and Abbey Carr perform in Twelfth Night (2.3) - highly commendable performance at this year's Festival!

 

Stay tuned for updates from the Design and Film categories!

 

National Shakespeare Youth Festival Update – E.L. Crossley

By: Allyssa Davies (acting in a Hamlet duologue with Victoria)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Victoria and I have decided to do the duologue for the Shakespeare festival. We have been a little behind track,  for Victoria and I have been away from school on the days we got to work on Shakespeare. We decided to do the duologue because we only had two people in our group.

We had a hard time deciding on what scene we were going to act.  We thought about doing the Queen and Ophelia having a conversation after Ophelia’s father had been killed.  We thought that it would be nice to show how these two characters interact after the Queen says what happened and Ophelia begins to go crazy.  Unfortunately. we were unable to find enough sentences to act out between the Queen and Ophelia.

So we decided to use the end scene of Hamlet.  This is where Hamlet and Laertes fight.  We went through and discovered many things between the lines that we wanted to portray as we act it out.  Victoria and I worked through the script adding and taking out lines and making sure it was all Shakespeare’s language.

We have also started choreographing the steps for the fight scene.  We are really slow right now but, with practise, I’m sure we will get better.
　
　
Thursday, April 21, 2011

Victoria and I have been working on the fight scene and trying to choreograph the steps.  We have come down to counting it out and we have been able to speed up the process of fighting.  It is not in slow motion anymore.  We have also looked on-line for help on how to choreograph a sword fight.

We have managed to finish the script and are fixing up certain spots.  We may need to add in more lines if we need to have more time because we have up to 7 minutes.  I believe that our script and sword fight will bring a better understanding that many people do not see when reading it.  We tried to dig deep between the lines, and we have brought up new thoughts and ideas and I hope that the judges see that and are able to tell what we have done.

Victoria and I have also discussed costumes.  We think we will have a black shirt verses a white shirt (one colour symbolizing each character), jeans, and have home made swords (made out of present wrapping paper rolls).  We also want one sword to be darker than the other to symbolize that it is tainted with poison.

National Shakespeare Youth Festival Update – Elmira

Left to Right: Tanisha Longley, Hayden Cooke, Ashley Bauman, Brett Schinkman, Nathan Jagger, Kristen Kaster, Tyler Hackbart, and Sarah Charron in a group scene from "The Taming of the Shrew"