MANSFIELD, Ohio – William Shakespeare once wrote, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.”
On Thursday, that stage was Mansfield Senior High School and the players were its students.
Local students were visited by the Royal Shakespeare Company, a major British theater company, for a workshop as part of the company’s “First Encounters with Shakespeare” tour in North America. Mansfield is just one of three American cities visited by the tour, including Columbus, Ohio, and Brooklyn, New York.
Performances of “The Famous Victories of Henry V” will take place at Shelby, Ashland and Mansfield schools next week. But first, students from Ohio State Mansfield, Mansfield Senior, Shelby and Ashland were able to participate in theater workshops.
“I’m going to get the students up on their feet, get them into our rehearsing process and get them to uncover the text in a more dynamic way rather than just reading it in a book,” said Sophie Hobson, an educator with the Royal Shakespeare Company. “It’ll very much be like getting under the skin of the words and the language and the characters, and bringing them to life.”
Therein lies the true purpose of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “First Encounters with Shakespeare” program: Bringing distilled versions of Shakespeare plays that have been specially created for schools and family audiences.
Hobson said there is a manifesto with the Royal Shakespeare Company that says, “Do it on its feet, start it early, see it live.”
“Coming to the theatre is a different art form. You can watch movies or the television but seeing something in front of you being brought to life with real-life people and real-life actors is spine-tingling and engaging,” she said. “Theater is part of life and part of growing up on stage, and hopefully it builds a lifelong relationship with theatre and a lifelong relationship with Shakespeare as well.”
On Thursday, Hobson visited both the Ohio State Mansfield campus and Mansfield Senior High for theater workshops. She asked students to exercise their bodies, voices and minds. More than 20 students from Mansfield Senior learned the premise of “The Famous Victories of Henry V” while learning to shout, stomp and move comfortably on stage.
“I’m excited to see what these guys’ response is going to be and what they’re going to bring to me on the stage, because everyone is different,” Hobson said before the workshop. “It’s the unknown entity of it, which is exciting.”
The Royal Shakespeare Company was able to visit the Richland County area through a partnership with the company and The Ohio State University main campus, currently in its seventh year. Emily Smith, Ohio State’s program coordinator with the partnership, said the beauty of partnering with the company is access to their resources, including actors and educational programming.
“These kids would most likely never get to experience something like this, and it’s important to us that these kids are able to experience Shakespeare and the resources we’ve been lucky to have access to,” she said.
This is the first time Ohio State’s main campus has partnered with the Mansfield branch campus to bring the Royal Shakespeare Company to the area. Smith said the chance to visit the Richland County area was mutually beneficial.
“We thought it would be a great opportunity for the students, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company to learn about rural Ohio,” Smith said. “It’s benefiting everyone in a really cool way, and it’s something that will hopefully change their lives forever.”
