Elm Shakespeare Company's Shakespeare in the Park Returns With a New Festival

Elm Shakespeare Company is doing things a bit differently this year. For one weekend, August 13, 14, and 15 students from five Elm Shakespeare programs, will appear at the first-ever Youth Festival of Shakespeare in Edgerton Park.

From August 13th through the 15th, Elm Shakespeare will celebrate over 70 students from widely different backgrounds and communities as they come together to share their passion and creativity, with 5 distinct productions of Shakespeare plays. In a world steeped in competition, the Youth Festival of Shakespeare provides students from schools across New Haven the opportunity to revel in each other's success and share the unique and challenging experience of bringing these plays to life.

The festival includes a production of Romeo & Juliet by the anti-violence group Ice the Beef in the culmination of a year long collaboration with Elm Shakespeare. Having debuted at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, this unique interpretation includes an interactive epilogue in which the performers explore how the tragedy might have been averted. It performs Friday at 6pm, Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 6pm.

Pericles performed by the participants of Elm Shakespeare's 5-week Shakespeare Intensive is an epic fairytale of love, loss and family redemption. With over 30 characters, 6 locations, and 3 shipwrecks, not too mention a couple of mistaken identities, it promises non-stop action and a whirlwind of costume changes! It performs Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 4pm, and Sunday at 8pm.

As You Like It, presented by Elm's Teen Troupe offers original live music and dance in a glorious tale of love with no less than four happy couples, all performed by some of Elm Shakespeare's most experienced students. It performs Saturday at 6pm and Sunday at 4pm.

Finally, the festival will be kicked off by an irresistible opening act... a double feature by Elm's youngest performers in a culmination of their summer camp experience at 2pm on Friday and 1pm on Saturday. Presenting both Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry V, it will feature the Players Camp signature DIY kid-driven aesthetic and promises to delight.

This is not your standard educational fare! A unique partnership between the professional production and design team of Elm Shakespeare and Elm Education, the festival surrounds these remarkable young performers with professional costumes, sets, lights and sound. It will be a feast of great theatre, both feeding the senses and inspiring the heart. All festival performances are free to the public and last just under 90 minutes, with just a 30 minute break in between. Audiences are encouraged to bring a blanket or a lawn chair, a picnic and stay for more than one!

Elm Shakespeare Company takes the new Delta variant of Covid seriously, and is working closely with city officials to keep everyone safe. All staff and volunteers will be masked, and all audience members will need to register for contact tracing, maintain social distance, and wear a mask when not seated during the performance.

For more information and a full schedule for the Youth Festival, visit https://www.elmshakespeare.org/youth-festival.

For more information on Elm Shakespeare Company, visit https://www.elmshakespeare.org/.

To post a comment, you must register and login.