William Shakespeare is expecting more than 200 kids from 35 city and county schools to show up for his birthday party this year. The festivities take the form of the San Diego Shakespeare Society\u2019s fourth annual Student Shakespeare Festival in Balboa Park, set for Saturday, April 25. All are welcome at the free event, which commences at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion at 12:30 p.m. with a procession led by costumed actors that takes everyone to performance areas along the Prado. The day concludes with presentations of awards and closing ceremonies at 3:30 p.m. Among schools participating for the first time this year are Castle Park High (Chula Vista); Coronado School of the Arts (Coronado); Guajome Park Middle (Vista); Hoover High (San Diego); Monarch School (San Diego); Tierra Del Sol Middle (Lakeside); Valhalla High (El Cajon); and Wangenheim Middle (San Diego). The students, whose ages range from elementary to high school, will entertain on as many as five stages. They have worked with professional directors in preparation of 10-minute scenes from the Bard of Avon\u2019s plays. One such director is well-known local actor Linda Libby, who teaches at High Tech Middle Media Arts. Libby is a dedicated teacher who inspires her students \u2014 and she knows whereof she speaks. “Our school has participated since the first festival,” she said. “That year, we did the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from \u2018A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream.\u2019 The kids had a great time \u2014 so much so that they came back. And they\u2019re still coming back. They\u2019re in high school, and they seek out Shakespeare. I\u2019m excited about that. They are really fired up about the Bard, and the festival gave them the chance to do that.” The inaugural group presented their scene at their school, and the younger kids became energized, too. And so it goes, on and on, with Shakespeare enhancing the students\u2019 skills and academic lives, according to Libby. She says the experience has engendered attendance at live performances of Shakespeare. Last year, Sam Hargrove, one of Libby\u2019s students, had to schedule his bar mitzvah around the festival. Some of his classmates and friends remained in Balboa Park; others went off to the rite and ensuing celebration, during which he received a phone call informing him that he\u2019d won Best Actor for Touchstone in “As You Like It.” Hooray for the Bard! Hooray for the San Diego Shakespeare Society and numerous volunteers who make this annual outdoor celebration possible. For additional information, visit sandiegoshakespearesociety.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
William Shakespeare is expecting more than 200 kids from 35 city and county schools to show up for his birthday party this year. The festivities take the form of the San Diego Shakespeare Society\u2019s fourth annual Student Shakespeare Festival in Balboa Park, set for Saturday, April 25. All are welcome at the free event, which […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":273072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11556","_seopress_titles_title":"The Bard of Balboa Park is the guest of honor at fourth annual Student Shakespeare Festival","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11556,11547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-downtown-news","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}