A few weeks after spring semester closed, the Ohio State Lima students and staff who put on “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)[Revised]” reprised the spring production and took it on the road to the auditorium at Lima Senior.
Due to time constraints, the cast staged Act II of the fast-paced, light-hearted look at all the plays of Shakespeare. While Act I flies through all of Shakespeare’s comedies, histories and tragedies, Act II focuses almost exclusively on Hamlet
The freshmen, sophomores and eighth graders in the audience had already had some exposure to Shakespeare and the older students will study Hamlet next year. They will benefit from the early exposure to the story line and the spoken language.
“It is really difficult to read drama and not have the experience of seeing it. Drama is meant to be performed. So when you just read it and you're reading the stage directions and you're reading the things on the page, it's really difficult to make that picture in your head about what does that actually look like,” said John Parent, English language arts curriculum leader at Lima City Schools. “The more you are immersed in the language of Shakespeare, the easier it becomes.”