Students Share Shakespeare in Southern Utah

Each year, Andrea Meyer, an English teacher at Mingus Union High School, along with teachers Alyssa Majewski and James Ball plan, organize and chaperone Honors/AP English and Drama students to the Shakespeare Festival in Southern Utah .

While staying at a local KOA campground, students enjoy a back stage tour, lessons in weaving side burns and wigs using real hair and tour the orchestra pit. They enjoy free shows like The 12th Night, King Lear, Lend Me a Tenor and Candida from lawn seats and discuss Shakespeare's use of Iambic pentameter.

The trip concludes with a hike into a slot canyon of the Narrows of the Virgin River in Zion National Park where students analyze Gary Schneider poems and write their own while nestled in alcoves carved by the water. `

Students learn from each other on this trip and form new friendships. Honors/AP English students learn about blocking - the movement and positioning of actors on the stage; and Drama students lean about subtext - the content underneath spoken dialogue such as conflict, sexual tension, anger, competition and pride.

Meyer says the most valuable element of the trip for the students is the exposure to new intellectual and sensory experiences. Many students have never been to Utah , the Virgin River , an outdoor theater, seen a wig being made or eaten a raspberry tart. Students have no idea of what to be when they don't know what's available in the world.

As Meyer says, "Our job is to give them the vision, the rest of it takes care of itself."