A documentary from Cannes-winning director Kerry Feltham
WILL to WIN with Shakespeare
"Very entertaining... a great insight into young people getting excited by Shakespeare."
- The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-on-Avon, England
now on DVD 79 minutes $19.95
A dozen Pali High students compete with sixty other California high schools at Shakespeare Festival. They delve into Shakespeare, find love of creation, bonding, triumph, defeat, pain, and delight.
And one wins. Which one?
" I was knocked out. You actually captured the creative process and at the same time the dramatic tension and exciting entertainment for the viewer. The suspense, intertwined with all of the human drama ... was gripping."
"(the audience) really enjoyed it."
- The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C
"I LOVE that video! It is one of the few times I’ve seen school actually bring out the passionate best in students." - Peter Kastner
IN SIX WEEKS, student actors take four Shakespeare plays, analyze the texts, cut them to eight minutes each, cast, rehearse, and then compete head to head against sixty other high schools for the First Place trophy in the Southern California Shakespeare Festival.
IT'S ABOUT INTENSITY, ambition, creativity, working together, learning the craft, giving your all, jealousy and generosity. It’s about how well schools can work. It’s also about hormones.
Theatre Arts teachers: the film is divided into chapters so that it can be shown over two periods. Classes see models for text analysis, blocking, directing, performing, working together, all as an experience which students say they find absorbing and useful.