Arts & Leisure
YMS Shakespeare Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary
By Melissa Wood
The lovers' quarrel scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," performed here by cast members that included Donald Goodrich, Alan Kwok, Logan Tully, Emily Campbell, Wesley Warner and Andrew Kolbjornsen received accolades from the New Hampshire Theatre Project at the 25th Annual York Middle School Shakespeare Festival last week.
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Haley Hagood plays the role of Queen Titania in this York Middle School Shakespeare Festival scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
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Evan McElwain performs a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the York Middle School Shakespeare Festival, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last week.
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Gabbie Gauthier and Olivia Broadrick perform in a scene from Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" at the day-long Shakespeare Festival last week at York Middle School.
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Ruby Cribby is seen here in a scene from "Hamlet" during the YMS Shakespeare Festival on May 31.
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York Middle School sixth-graders, including Stanley Szeniawski, Evan McElwain, Cameron Frecker, Maddy Knoepfel and Nicole Sarson, performed scenes from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" like this one entitled "The Play Rehearsal" at the Shakespeare Festival on May 31.
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YORK - For 25 years sixth-graders have been immersed into the world and works of Shakespeare at York Middle School's annual Shakespeare Festival.
Gwyneth Wykes, who has played Queen Elizabeth at the festival for 11 of those years, said the festival is a memorable experience for its many alumni. She was in Rick's Restaurant and the cook came out of the kitchen, bowed to her, saying, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
"We're the beneficiaries," added Wykes, who was born just 17 miles from Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. "Each time I find it breathtaking."
This year's day-long festival, held on Thursday, May 31, included 24 scenes from Shakespeare plays, dancing, a maypole and a carnival with Elizabethan games such as log rolling, a cauldron toss and a very old game called Nine Men's Morris that was mentioned in one of Shakespeare's plays.
To commemorate 25 years, the day also included visits from Shakespeare Festival alumni like Andy Geranis, who is now a teacher at the school and former teacher Susan Fryling as well as students who are now in college as drama majors.
Principal Steve Bishop presented teachers Paula Bogard and Tony Beaumier with flowering bushes to celebrate their ongoing work with the festival.
Beaumier said the students are first introduced to Shakespeare in September when they read "A Midsummer's Night Dream." In the two weeks leading up to the festival the students work with members of the New Hampshire Theatre Project to hone their acting skills.
"They really work with the kids one-on-one to get these incredible performances," said Beaumier.
Beaumier said former student Robin Fowler, who played one of the sinister characters in the production of "Oliver" at the Prescott Park Arts Festival in Portsmouth, N.H., is now studying drama in college.
"With being a teacher you never know what your effect is until years later," said Beaumier.
He said at the first festival the sixth-graders performed two full-length, abridged productions - "The Taming of the Shrew" and "A Midsummer's Night Dream" - but he and the other sixth-grade teachers changed the program to 10-minute scenes after attending a workshop years ago because the shorter scenes give the kids more opportunities to play major roles.
Blair Hundertmark of the New Hampshire Theatre Project said they work with the students not only on speaking the lines but also on the physical aspects of stage work.
"We spend a lot of time teaching them very safe hand-to-hand combat," he said. "It takes hours to get those fights so they look real and nobody gets hurt."
Hundertmark called one of the scenes, a depiction of the lovers' quarrel in "A Midsummer's Night Dream" performed by Donald Goodrich, Alan Kwok, Emily Campbell, Logan Tully, Andrew Kolbjornsen and Wesley Warner from Elaine Booth's homeroom, one of the best he's seen in the festival's many years.
Genevieve Aichele, artistic director for the company, said that working with the students is a pleasure, and she commended the hard work and extra hours put in by the teachers to pull off the festival every year.
"For some of the kids this is the first time their teachers see them shine in something," she said. "They get a real positive."
Donna Bakke, an English teacher at the York High School who has taught freshmen for 26 years, said her students speak fondly of the Shakespeare Festival.
"When I begin "Macbeth" with them, we always explore what the students already know, and collectively they list a number of facts and express their enthusiasm, which sure makes introducing our curriculum a positive experience," she said. "It also supports my belief that the younger kids are when first exposed to new things (e.g. Shakespeare and foreign languages), the more accepting they are."
Festival alumna Helen Sturgis-Bright, who is currently a ninth-grader at Noble High School and returned to this year's festival as an intern with the theatre group, said she went from playing Puck in the 10-minute lovers' quarrel scene to playing Puck the next year in a full-length production.
"I think it's wonderful," she said. "It's a highlight of middle school, and it's a lot of fun."
