UALR’s Department of English and the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will present the 2010 Shakespeare Scene Festival from 9:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday and Thursday, March 17 and 18, at the University Theatre in the Center for Performing Arts.

The Shakespeare Scene Festival brings together students from a variety of central Arkansas schools to perform scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Each performance will last approximately 25 minutes. Students serve as the audience for the other classes of performers. Admission is free and open to the public.

A performance of a Shakespearean scene integrates several elements of literacy and literacy education including:  intensive study of the English language, cooperative learning, and process-based theater as well as the discipline, creativity, and organization required to rehearse and perform a scene.

“In this process, every student in the classroom can find a niche: as performer, script editor, director, technician, or backstage crew member,” said Brad Minnick, UALR assistant professor of English and director of English education. “The active engagement of working on Shakespeare from inside the text provides opportunities for students to understand more fully plot, character motivations, and language issues.

“An additional obvious advantage of teaching students Shakespeare through the medium of performance is that the students are actively engaged in some aspect of the performance; it is not possible for them to sit passively by as others do the work.”

For more information, contact Minnick at jbminnick@ualr.edu.