Saturday, April 30, 2011

Get Down With the Bard in Summer Camp!

If there's a middle-schooler hanging around the house who a) likes to dress up and play games, b) likes English class, and c) thinks Shakespeare is kinda cool, that child needs to sign up for the special summer camp hosted by the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

There's Shakespeare’s Apprentice Camp, offered in two one-week sessions, intended for "middle school students who are interested in an introduction to acting, theatre vocabulary, improvisation combat and the life and times of William Shakespeare. Students will research and perform a fun adaptation of a Shakespeare play at the end of the week for family and friends. Using Shakespeare’s language to tell a story will give the students the skills needed for the Advanced Shakespeare Camp."

Apprentice Camp is offered:

Session 1: June 13th – 17th, at the Western Avenue Community Center

Session 2: June 20th – 25th, on the Illinois State University campus

Students who have attended Shakespeare Camp before or have other experience that makes them think Apprentice Camp isn't intense enough may want to consider Shakespeare's Advanced Acting Camp instead. Advanced Acting Camp is offered as a two-week session on the ISU campus.

Advanced Acting Camp takes a deeper look at Shakespeare's language, as well as stage combat and more concentrated rehearsals, with an end goal of "a performance of scenes, monologues and soliloquy from Shakespeare’s plays." Advanced Camp also includes a question and answer class with guests who are working with the Illinois Shakespeare Festival this summer.

Shakespeare's Apprentice Camp is $200, while Shakespeare's Advanced Acting Camp is $350. For more information or to register, click here and scroll down the page till you see Summer Camps.

7 comments:

  1. You're totally ready for Advanced Camp. Maybe they'll even let you do Antonio for your monologue!

    I would be happy if you would just come to Illinois sometime this summer and go to see Shakespeare with me. Although maybe we should wait for a year that doesn't have "The Compleat Wks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)" in it. I love that show, but I don't like wasting one of my Shakespeare slots on it.

    ISF season info: thefestival.org

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  2. I should also note that this Shakespeare-related post is my 23rd blog post this April. :-)

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  3. Antonio? as the merchant of Venice?

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  4. Ooops! Angelo. I always do that, adding Antonios where they're not wanted.

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  5. Well, there are so MANY Antonios sprinkled around the plays, it's easy to figure every play has one. There's the Merchant, Sebastian's buddy in 12N (both with crushes on their best friends -- I would happily play either one), the uncle in Much Adoodle-doo, and one of the baddies in The Tempest... who can keep track?

    Hey, I would love to do a Shakespeare-watching trip with you! If not Illinois this year, we can put Oregon or Stratford Ontario on our bucket list.

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