150 students tame Shakespeare

Acting isn’t just about reciting lines from a script, even if the script is by William Shakespeare. The eighth-grade students of John Muir Middle School in Burbank learned that lesson on Jan. 27 during the school’s 11th annual “Shrew Day.” Students immersed themselves in Elizabethan England, with lessons on fencing, juggling, dancing, singing, acting and other crucial talents in workshops taught by visiting artists from Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum. All that was before lunch.

Then came the play itself, as 150 students performed the Bard’s classic comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew.” It was the final act of three weeks of study in class. To give each student a part to play in the production, the play was broken into 17 scenes. Each English class acted and helped direct, including English-language learners and special needs kids. For one day at Muir, all the school was a stage, and the many boys and girls the excited players.

-- Raul Roa, Times Community News

Twitter: @raulroa