June 5, 2002

Young thespians tackle 'Twelfth Night'

Holy Angels first-graders stage Shakespeare play

By LISA PERKINS
Herald staff writer
When Karin Foster approached her son's first-grade teacher, Kelly Sellers, about having her class at Holy Angels Elementary School perform a Shakespearean play, Sellers 'twas a bit skeptical.
Just eight weeks and many hours of practice later, the students presented William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" to a packed house last week.
"I knew they could do it," said Foster who planned, coached and organized the production. "As a lover of Shakespeare, I was familiar with the adaptations written for young children by Lois Burdett and Christine Coburn. In Stratford, second-graders do these plays."
The adaptations of classic Shakespearean plays by Burdett and Coburn are written in more familiar language and short rhymes to aid in memorization.
Scenes like this one between Sir Toby, played by Ian Spencer and Maria, played by Bailey Johnson, had lines that seemed to roll easily off the young tongues - and got quite a few chuckles from the audience.

Malvolio left them in a stupor.
Sir Toby yelled, "Party pooper!"
Maria agreed, "The guy's a jerk!
I have a plan for him that will work.
We'll make a love note written in code.
When he figures it out he will explode!
It will be from Olivia, and it will say
That she loves Malvolio more each day.
We'll meet tomorrow to do the trick.
She'll think he is a lunatic.
I can't wait," Maria said
"But now it's late. I'm going to bed."

"Getting the kids to learn the lines was the easy part," Foster said. "It was much more difficult to get them feeling comfortable up on stage, but in the end they did a great job. I'm really proud of all of them."