Michigan Shakespeare Festival High School Tour
The Michigan Shakespeare Festival is proud to bring the opportunity to experience the passion and drama of live Shakespeare Performances to High Schools as part of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s 2011-2012 Tour.
In 2011, The Tour performed The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet for over 10,000 students in 9 counties—and we’re expanding this season to produce, in addition to Romeo & Juliet, The Tragedy of Macbeth. Either show is available at any time—both in one day if schools would like.
The Tour, now in its third season, is being offered to high schools in Bay, Calhoun, Genesee, Hillsdale, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Midland, Monroe, Muskegon, Oakland, Ottawa, Saginaw, Van Buren, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties in Michigan, and the Greater Toledo Area in Ohio, from November 28, 2011 through May 25th, 2012.
"The goal of the tour is for high school students to see why we’re still doing these shows 400 years after their original writing," says Michigan Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Janice L. Blixt, "While Shakespeare as literature is fascinating and important, seeing Shakespeare performed live is a completely different experience — these plays were meant to be heard, to be seen—and we want students to see that Shakespeare is about love, fear, pain, anger, life and laughter and, yes, death."
Both Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet run about 100 minutes (there are no intermissions) and are set as Shakespeare’s own company would have performed them: our productions are set in a combination of "period" style and modern sensibilities: in a similar manner to how Shakespeare's own company would have mixed their current fashion with costume pieces and properties.
For Romeo & Juliet, the combat is classic Renaissance rapier/dagger, the properties are all Renaissance properties, and the costumes combine early Renaissance shirts, boots, long dresses and gonellas with jeans and sweaters. For Macbeth, the combat is medieval broadsword, the properties are medieval and rather rustic, and the costumes combine medieval tunics, boots, and dresses with jeans. Our purpose is to be true to Shakespeare's texts and not to let some "concept" or design interfere with understanding of the language and yet allow expected aspects of classical theatre free reign.
The productions are both edited from the First Folio of 1623 by MSF AD Blixt and the fights are all choreographed by MSF’s Resident Violence Designer and Artistic Associate David Blixt. "These are both terrific shows to design the combat for as they run the fight-gambit from absurd playfulness to deadly cut and thrusts — from swashbuckling fun to real violence," David Blixt says.
The Tour seeks to significantly extend the educational outreach of The Michigan Shakespeare Festival to include high schools, children, teachers and professionals in addition to its annual summer season of professional classical theatre productions.