Shakespeare Schools Festival 2017
On Monday 13th November the Year 11 BTEC Performing Arts class performed Hamlet at the Contact Theatre in Manchester. This was part of the annual Shakespeare Schools Festival that aims to teach young people about Shakespeare’s writings. Our class performed a futuristic version of Hamlet where the story took place in a female dominated society; in order for this to work we reversed all the genders and re-arranged the script to fit with our idea.
We rehearsed tirelessly for months prior to the show, trying to learn Shakespearian language as well as keeping the play interesting for the audience to view. As complicated as this project was, we received an enormous amount praise and admiration from both the audience and the other schools taking part on the night. However the biggest praise overall has to go to our teacher Miss Plimmer. She pushed our class out of our comfort zone with this project and successfully brought an intricate story to life complete with dance and song.
The performances from Holly Simpson as Hamlet, Scarlett Hughes as Claudius and Dan Pimlott as Ophelia were outstanding as always along with the rest of the class supporting and encouraging each other throughout the entire process. A large thank you must also be made to the Shakespeare Schools Festival for allowing us to perform with them and for teaching us how interesting Shakespeare can be with imagination.
Written by Emma J, 11JW
Here is the glowing appraisal report for the Bridgewater performance from a member of the SSF team:
