By Dominik Lobkowicz
A group of tradespeople prepare to put on a play within a play. From left, Dam Truong as Francis Flute, Benjamin Benefield as Snug, Aurora Ochampaugh as Robin Starveling, Reese Instasi as Tom Snout, Dylan Barter as Nick Bottom, and Catherina Robinson as Peter Quince. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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Zachary Winchenbach (left) and Logan Look play Lysander and Demetrius, two noblemen both in love with the same woman. (D. Lobkowicz photo) |
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Students in Laurie Brown’s third grade class got made up and dressed up the week of June 4 to perform three showings of an elementary school adaptation of William Shakespeare’s
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Brown said her class puts on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” every year, and she has been doing it so long now that high school graduates remember playing roles in the play.
“I find that it’s an opportunity for many students to take part because something like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ it’s only two main people, so this has so many different characters in
it and everybody gets to shine,” Brown said.
Practicing the play is part of the class’s literacy block, helping to teach vocabulary, fluency, projection, and being in front of a crowd, Brown said. Math and art tie in as
well through student-created set pieces, she said.
The project teaches “a lot of things that I can incorporate into the Common Core State Standards that we are so lucky to have to guide us in our curriculum,” Brown said.
Putting on the play is also a way for Brown to expand the walls of her classroom for her students.
“We don’t have a lot of field trips, we can’t go a lot of places because we don’t have money, but this is something I can provide for them,” she said.
