This article is part of a regular series out of Berkshire Hills Regional School District in which we share student and staff news and learning for the goal of increasing communication touchpoints between the community and its public schools.
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Editor’s note: The following was written by Sheela Clary in her capacity as a staff member of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.
The story of the most famous star-crossed lovers in the world is coming to your neighborhood high school. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” interpreted by 23 Monument Mountain students and tech crew members and their two directors, is showing at the high school on Friday, November 15, and Saturday, November 16, at 7 p.m., and over the Fall Festival weekend on November 23, at 3:30 p.m., at the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company.
2024 marks the 36th year of the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, and more than 500 students at 10 high schools in the region are participating in one of its most highly anticipated win-wins of the year. Students are treated to an educational experience like no other, and for the Fall Fest weekend, which features play after play from Thursday through Sunday, the community is treated to a four-day Shakespeare immersion.
Each cast and crew spend an intensive nine weeks studying and rehearsing, with two or three students often sharing a role, thanks in part to a line limit rule imposed per student. In Monument’s “Romeo and Juliet,” there are three Romeos and three Juliets.
Senior Olivia Ostrander, one of the Juliets, has done Fall Fest all four of her high school years. She says that one of the stand-out educational benefits for her is “dictionary work,” where, “You look up all the words you don’t know, so you’re understanding what’s going on in every scene.” Elizabethan English is notoriously difficult to get right, which is why language study is so important. “Everyone thinks that ‘wherefore’ as in, ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo?’ means ‘where,’” she explains. “It actually means ‘why,’ as in, ‘Why are you Romeo?’ rather than someone else?” Ostrander’s three favorite scenes in the show are the ball scene, where the Juliets meet the Romeos for the first time; the “iconic” balcony scene; and, “unfortunately, I’m gonna say our death, because we get to feel very loved.”
Liam O’Gara, another senior, who plays Prince Escalus, also learned through his dictionary work something about how social class distinctions were conveyed through language. His character addresses another with “Sirrah.” This, says O’Gara, “is a way to address somebody semi-formally, but in a class beneath yours. I say it to the servant of one of my cousins.” The linguistic benefits carry over into his English classes. “We read Hamlet last year at a really quick clip, and I was able to understand significantly more, quicker, because of Fall Fest.” As for his part in “Romeo and Juliet,” O’Gara’s Prince is not a main character, but he does pack a punch. “I’m part of a family that’s neutral in this fight,” meaning the Capulet-Montague feud. “I want peace. I come on stage two times to say, ‘Stop fighting.’ ‘Who killed this person?’ I get to be powerful.”
For many the non-performance highlights of the fall-long process are the common classes, in which all the participants from all 10 schools learn skills—stage combat, voice, dance and movement, and tech—together. The stage combat class, taught by Shakespeare & Company Director of Education Kevin G. Coleman, turned Monument’s own gym into a violent scene of oath-swearing, fighting, and dying. One hundred students lined up on one side of the room to charge against their antagonists on the other side, wielding imaginary swords and swearing Shakespearean oaths, striking each other on the shoulder, in the abdomen, through the heart. Their victims learned how to crumple, stumble, and collapse.
Senior Nyx Tucci has also done Fall Fest all four years, for the first three with best friend Nico, who graduated last June. “First, we were the comedy duo Stefano and Trinculo in The Tempest. That was great, and made me want to come back. Next year was ‘Henry V,’ comedy duo with my best friend again. I was the constable and he was the dauphin. Junior year [for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’] I did tech and got to be on the other side of things, and this year I’m Tybalt. I’ve never been the main character, and I still feel like I am the most important person on stage.”
Anna Rock and Malle Winters are the co-directors of the Monument Mountain Fall Festival this year. For Anna it is her first time directing, though she has acted professionally in Shakespeare productions and first saw a Shakespeare & Company Fall Fest in middle school in Washington, D.C. “Even with all the theater that exists in D.C., there wasn’t anything like this, and there really isn’t in most places. Being in that room, and hearing people hiss and stomp in response to text that’s so elevated. Their response indicated how much they understood it. As a kid I was like, ‘Me too!’”
Through her connection to the director of that show, Anna went on to eventually play, among other roles, Kate in “Taming of the Shrew” in Texas, as well as Polonius in “Much Ado about Nothing” and Hamlet in “Hamlet.” In her directing work, she is struck by what happens when students share roles. It is “a festival staple,” she says, but it is new to her. “It’s become such a strength … [I]f you get multiple people to talk to each other, as one identity, you can see extra dimension in the text.”
For some students, Fall Fest is their first experience performing on stage, and so rehearsals serve as an essential, awkward training ground that everyone has to move through before you can get to the good stuff. “We did our first line read-through yesterday … [I]t was their first time, that feeling of ‘Oh, I don’t know my cues,’ that gut-wrenching feeling where the room is waiting for you. That’s tough to witness. But it’s good that it’s happening, and you realize that it’s a tool you need to happen, instead of a moment of shame. You need to know where those spots are now, instead of in a week from now, when we perform.”
This is director Malle Winters’ third season with the Fall Fest. One of her jobs was to edit William Shakespeare, to figure out both what to cut from the original play to keep it within 90 minutes. (As she put it, “88 minutes equals 1,300 lines … [I]f it’s not plot, gone.”)
The collaborative and joyful vibe of Fall Fest is, participants say, perhaps its biggest selling point. Junior Stella Baden, a Romeo, doesn’t go out for Monument’s annual winter musical. But she does do Fall Fest, because the competitive aspect is eliminated. No one knows what character they will be playing until they start rehearsing. “It feels like everyone is on an equal footing, and it’s more about just having fun together,” she says. Sadie Honig-Briggs, who is playing both Mercutio and Lord Montague, added that she has seen shy students who don’t see themselves as theater kids get swept up in the enthusiasm generated by the show. “They see that the audience is supportive, it’s not there to judge their mistakes. They can just go with the flow.”
“Romeo and Juliet” will be showing in the auditorium at Monument Mountain Regional High School on Friday, November 15, and Saturday, November 16, at 7 p.m., with $10 adult and $5 student tickets available at the door. The following Saturday, November 23, at 3:30 p.m., “Romeo and Juliet” is on the mainstage at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox. Tickets for that show can be purchased online.
