The Shakespeare Festival is held every Third Year. In addition to numerous hands-on experiences studying renaissance times, each grade performs a play. Read an article about the play below:
See Video of Midsummer Nght's Dream
Daily Local News
by Michael Crist, Staff Writer
Westtown , PA—There was much ado about William Shakespeare this week, as student in the Middle School celebrated the life and times of the famed Elizabethan bard.
Students in the sixth, seventh, and eight grades spent their time in various workshops and performed"A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Twelfth Night," and "The Taming of the Shrew.".
" I like it because there's no class or homework or anything," said sixth-grader Maddy, who was working on a calligraphy project Thursday. "Plus we get to learn about Shakespeare. It's lots of fun."
The students in the calligraphy workshop got to cut their own quill pens, make their own paper and make banners with verses from the Bible and lines from Shakespeare's plays.
Other workshop topics included Shakespeare's kitchen, in which students made fried oranges and different colored breads; pleasures and pastimes, with students participating in games and sports of the Elizabethan period; Renaissance bookmaking; and witchcraft and punishment, in which students constructed miniature torture devices of the time period out of popsicle sticks.
Seventh-grader Sam, who took on the persona of Shakespeare, discussed what he discovered about the playwright/poet, as a group of court jesters practiced juggling.
"It's interesting that in his time, he wasn't accepted as the greatest playwright," Sam said. "Now he's considered to be because think we understand his work more."
Some students, like seventh-grader Kendall, were hard at work sewing Elizabethan costumes to wear at a banquet on Thursday evening.
Kendall was busy fine-tuning a pink jester's collar to go with her purple and pink skirt and jester's hat.
"It's fun. We got a packet of things to choose from," Kendall said. "I found this fabric and like it, and made everything matching."
Outside, a group of students were putting the finishing touches on a wooden trebuchet, which is similar to a catapult.
"A group before us started it, but we had to redo the bottom with a double layer, "said sixth-grader Kieran. "I think this one will go about a hundred feet."
Kieran described how a trebuchet in the 1500's would be about 30 feet tall, and could shoot a boulder 200 to 250 yards.
Though they didn't have boulders, the students shot a dodge ball about 73 feet, just shy of Kieran's' prediction.
These activities and others began 15 years ago, when the Shakespeare festival at Westtown was first held.
The event is limited to middle school students, takes place every three years, and according to Middle School Principal Nancy van Arkel, it gets better every time.
"The Shakespeare and renaissance time period offers so much richness. You can go in so many different directions," van Arkel said. "It's a very experiential and hands-on event, and the involvement of the parents in the process, side-by-side with the teachers has been phenomenal."