SHAKESPEARE plays: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, which they performed at the Thameside Theatre on Thursday 31st March in the school’s very own Shakespeare Festival. Woodside started playing Shakespeare at the Thameside in 2014. initially as part of the national Shakespeare Schools Festival, alongside Little Thurrock, Palmer’s College and Gable Hall, but in 2019 hired the theatre for a Woodside only performance. Unfortunately, with Covid19, that was their last performance there until now and they were excited to be back. Woodside Principal Edward Caines explained,
“We believe the experience of acting in quality drama in a real theatre is something every child should have, not just a selected few. Once we have three classes in a year now we needed our own Shakespeare festival at the theatre to give all our children this life-time opportunity. We are very pleased that the Thameside Theatre has stayed open and enabled us to do this. We need a theatre in the borough to give children experiences like this and for so many other reasons.”
Woodside Y5 class teacher drama lead Layla Leyland said,
“Woodside Academy’s Shakespeare Festival has provided our children with an amazing cultural opportunity to perform on a commercial stage in front of an audience. They have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process from choosing which play to perform, making decisions on the lighting, music and costumes and designing and making the props. We have had wonderful feedback from them and they really engaged with the experience. Some had never performed on a professional stage before and this has provided them with a chance to shine and given them inspiration and confidence to want to perform again.”
Each year 5 class at Woodside takes a Shakespeare play as a basis not only for literacy work but as a starting point to study life in Elizabethan England also visiting the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s own the theatre, The Globe in London. Although they had an abbreviated and partly adapted text children also engaged with the real Shakespearean language, with clear benefits showing through in their own writing. The week before the performance was also Woodside’s annual Shakespeare Week when all the classes have a chance to learn about the work of our most famous playwright.
