Eighth graders at Montezuma Cortez Middle School are preparing to see a professional abridged performance of “Hamlet” on April 20. The performance is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s outreach program and funded by the LOR Foundation.
The show is open to the entire eighth grade class as well as any high school students who wish to attend and will be held in the high school auditorium.
Eighth grade English teacher Lissa Lycan said students have spent more than a month reading aloud and analyzing “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as part of the district’s eighth grade English curriculum. Seeing “Hamlet” performed will allow students to hear trained actors speak Early Modern English after learning how to interpret the language.
“They are familiar now with how to interpret Shakespearean language and are ready to experience a professional production of a play,” Lycan said. “I am so impressed with their willingness to tackle something this difficult and their correct understanding of such complex writing.”
In October, a group of eighth graders attended a performance of “Hamlet” by the theater company Merely Players in Durango after receiving complimentary tickets to a sold-out show. Lycan said many students reacted enthusiastically despite having limited prior knowledge of the story, later quoting lines and sharing inside jokes from the production.
Eighth grade student Kinsley Decker wrote to the Merely Players about the experience.
“This play filled me with emotions, from grief, to sadness, as well as happiness and laughter,” Decker said.
She said the scene in which Hamlet’s uncle confessed to murdering Hamlet’s father was especially powerful and nearly brought her to tears.
“It truly showed how the human race can be so evil as he spoke of how he killed his brother,” she said. “If I could come to see this performance again, I truly would.”
While not every middle school student is eager to attend a Shakespeare play, Lycan said many students have embraced the challenge.
“Shakespeare is another language entirely,” she said. “It requires a different level of perseverance to work through a Shakespeare text, and when students succeed at something this challenging, they feel a moment of mastery.”
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s outreach program brings professional theater into schools, allowing students to see Shakespeare performed live after studying the texts in class.
