WHS Shakespeare Club Performs and Enjoys Shakespeare in Washington D.C.

by Liam Rousselle

Walkersville’s very own Shakespeare club went to Folgers Shakespeare festival in Washington D.C. to perform their hand-picked scenes from the pages of Shakespeare. But Walkersville was not the only school performing for Folgers; there were four other schools who had rigorously practiced for the Folgers performances.

During the festival, the five schools performed. “It was really cool to see shows that we have done in the past interpreted in a different way” said senior Rachel Wilson. Each school had a unique take on Shakespeare and his very difficult language. Despite this, all five schools were able to slip in humor, drama, and pure joy in their performances.

In between each performance, an impromptu game was played. For each game, students from all five schools were picked to work together without knowing anything about each other. Each game was different, but all had a strong relation to Shakespeare.

A prime example of this would be the the game that Walkersville High School’s Lydia Pedersen was involved in. “The nine of us who were picked had to read the script as fast as possible. The script was an adaptation of Hamlet, and it was really fun to hear how differently people said the lines. In the end I think we were able to finish the script in [around] twenty-three seconds.”

After all of the performances and games, there was a group activity involving all of the schools. Groups of five to seven actors were made, and were given a seemingly simple task. Each group had to make a short scene based off of one sentence or phrase.

“It was interesting. Cian, Claire, and Brendan were in my group.” commented junior Tyler Brust. “I had two other students from another school in my group.” Brust’s sentence was ‘Heavenly Rosalind!’ In this scene his groupmates stared at him in an envious manner, and Brust proceeded to turn his head and stare at the audience with the complexion of a supermodel. A photo of this beautiful moment can be found above.

The Folgers Shakespeare Festival was an opportunity for everyone to express their love of Shakespeare, no matter what school they come from. Everyone was involved, even if they were not an actor in the pre-selected performances.