News
We’re hoping for more school partners this year. We’ll be returning to the May Center for Learning, and Santa Fe Indian School as well as continuing our Saturday program for individual students. If your middle or high school is interested in participating just let us know through the contact form.
This year we’ll be returning to the format of students performing soliloquies and small scenes from a variety of Shakespeare’s plays.
With few schools ready to return to after-school programming, we repeated our strategy from 2022. We chose a play (Julius Caesar) and worked with individual students and two participating schools (Santa Fe Indian School and Wood Gormley Elementary) on scenes from the play.
Participation was enthusiastic and we had close to thirty students performing together at the Scottish Rite Temple’s beautiful historic stage.
Out 2022 Festival featured fewer schools but many students.
After the shutdown we found we were unable to provide in-school programming to most of our partner schools. Some no longer could support after-school programs, others didn’t have sufficient faculty to act as liaisons. So we pivoted!
We started a Saturday afternoon Shakes Club for individual students who were interested in participating in the Festival and the turn out was impressive.
In addition we found a new partner - the May Center for Learning - who welcomed us weekly during the fall semester to run a class on Macbeth.
The 2022 Festival became a show of scenes from Macbeth, with students from the May Center and our Saturday group working on scenes and then coming together to perform them at the Santa Fe Playhouse in April 2022.
With schools closed and classes on Zoom, 2021 did not include a Festival. But now that educators are finding ways to safely teach in classrooms we are planning on a Youth Shakespeare Festival to take place in March of 2022. Scenes from Macbeth
For students who would like to try Shakespeare, acting, stage combat!
The Upstart Crows will provide weekly mentoring in person (and on Zoom with professional actors and directors) who will help each Club stage and act in at least one scene from Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy.
It’s a six month workshop in creativity and collaboration.
ShakesClubs will start in October and then perform as many scenes from the play as we have the ambition to create in our Festival in March.
Participants receive:
invitations to all ISC/Crow workshops with visiting artists during the school year
a chance to take part in an open mic night
participation in a costumed outdoor performance and filming opportunities
To sign up: contact Caryl Farkas
caryl@UpstartCrowsofSantaFe.org
The line stretched out the door as friends, faculty, and family arrived at Il Vicino to order dinner and watch our YSF actors perform their speeches in public for the first time.
Approximately 40 students from YSF programs in 8 schools participated in Devon’s workshops at the Shakespeare Reading Room in September.
This year’s YSF visiting artist is Devon Glover The Sonnet Man. Devon returns to Santa Fe to work with students from 8 schools and the Upstart Crows. Workshops at the Shakespeare Reading Room included demonstrations of hip hop Shakespeare from Devon, acting games and text work. Actors learned out to turn their soliloquies into EKG charts of their actor’s emotions.
This was the first time participants from all the schools met and got to do acting games together and try out their monologues. Pizza, salad, and drinks helped with the bonding and all had a great time with Devon.
Ten Shakespeare clubs, seventy actors, seventeen plays, including sword fights, Elizabethan song, and dance took over Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return on December 1, 2018 for a day packed with Shakespearean comedy, tragedy, and romance.
Here’s just some of our feedback:
A million thanks for the work you put in to making this happen. I had a wonderful wonderful time. - Rowan Soeiro, ATC student
Awesome, thank you so much! - Simon O’Brien NMSA parent
Simply amazing work! Than you so much for doing this with our kids! - Davita Ritchie, teacher, Capital High School
Thank YOU so much!! My son Mateo Amador had an absolute blast. Thanks for your time and dedication! - Cristina Macias, parent
"Saturday was incredible. I do not know how you pulled that off, but thank you. I had four family members take the tours and they all loved it. They were blown away. - Mike Root, parent
The 2018 Youth Shakespeare Festival’s Open Mic Shakespeare fundraiser was an amazing evening. With students from all our nine schools, plus members of Upstart Crows of Santa Fe performing, the restaurant was packed with friends and family members. I think we may have shocked the staff, who were figuring on a relatively quiet night. At one point, the line to order went out the front door and into the street.
The actors did a wonderful job with their scenes and speeches and a good time was had by all. Thanks to Il Vicino for their exemplary service and support!
