Bringing the Bard to the Next Generation
With arts education budgets in decline, Applied Shakespeare graduate and elementary school teacher Charlie Williamson is determined to bring Shakespeare’s life lessons to Fargo, North Dakota. Their aim is to help shape a new generation of thespians and enthusiasts while enabling teachers to do the same in the face of limited budgets but unlimited passion.
“Drama and arts integration in education is critical because the arts teach so much about empathy and understanding,” said Williamson.
For Williamson, Shakespeare in particular is key to theatre education, providing an avenue for students to explore big life concepts in an accessible way.
“We can talk about bullying, we can talk about generational violence, we can talk about racism and sexism in ways that don't feel as scary,” said Williamson. “We can say, ‘This character made this decision, and this was the result, what do we think about that?’ Then students can take those lessons into their own lives, their learning, their social-emotional goals in school and it directly parallels without feeling like they're looking at themselves and their classmates under a microscope.”
Using the mentorship and resources from the Applied Shakespeare program, Williamson is already making substantial strides to ensure that Shakespeare and his legacy lives on and continues to empower youth—a mission fueled by a deep, enduring passion for theatre.
Setting the Scene
While Williamson’s path was not always so clear cut, an early affinity for theatre provided the first steps toward their ultimate goals.
“I have done theatre ever since I was really little,” said Williamson. “In some families, kids play pee-wee soccer. In our family, all of us had to do theatre of some kind.”
Deepening their interest was the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF)—an event that celebrates Shakespeare and his continuing influence through productions, education and community engagement—which they attended with their father and family annually.
In 2015, Williamson became further rooted in the University of Colorado Boulder theatre scene when they participated in Camp Shakespeare, a summer camp for kids and teens hosted by CSF.
“I did lots of theatre camps in Denver, but wanted to give Camp Shakespeare a shot,” said Williamson. “We performed ‘A Winter's Tale’ and it was a ton of fun to be around other kids who were super excited about Shakespeare. We also got to perform on the Mary Rippon stage and that's a core memory in my brain. I got to be on the same stage where I had watched professional actors perform while I was growing up.”
It was also at Camp Shakespeare where Williamson’s passion for theatre education would kindle and ignite.
“Camp Shakespeare and a couple other theatre experiences I had in high school were definitely part of the reason that I am doing what I want to do today,” said Williamson. “These experiences really solidified the fun behind theatre because a lot of times in theatre there’s pressure to be perfect, but that wasn’t the atmosphere at Camp Shakespeare. It was a really fun, supportive place where I loved performing and I also got my first introduction to theatre education with a Shakespeare focus to it.”
An Actor’s Guide to Teaching the Next Generation
Eager to explore the possibilities of combining Shakespeare and theatre education, Williamson thought seriously about their next steps to bridge their passions.
“Halfway through high school, I decided that I didn't want to move to a big city and work as a freelance performer, because I did love working with kids,” said Williamson. “By the time I finished high school and started college, I was helping run summer camps for younger kids.”
“I fell in love with bringing theatre and teaching together. One of the kindergartners asked me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I said, ‘A teacher!’ So I got to put those two things together with theatre education.”
Williamson earned a BA in Theatre from Colorado State University. Post-undergraduate, Williamson relocated to Fargo, North Dakota, where they are currently working at the Inspire Innovation Lab as an English and language arts teacher for the fourth, fifth and sixth grades—a destination that allows Williamson to bring theatre education to young audiences that could benefit the most from it.
“I work at a project-based learning school, and a large population of students are on the autism spectrum, have neurodivergence, have different behavioral issues—a public school classroom really doesn't work for them,” said Williamson. “But when kids come in to do theatre-based games and activities, they're up on their feet. They’re acting out different scenarios from the books that we're reading and learning in a new way.”
While Williamson has seen countless students benefit from arts programming, one student in particular provided a poignant example of the necessity of such programming as a way for students to overcome real-life challenges.
“I had one student at the beginning of last year who cried every single day when his parents dropped him off. He struggled making friends and talking to people and if he couldn't do something, he would shut down,” said Williamson. “By the end of the school year, he was making sarcastic comments to people, he had two best friends and he was really comfortable.”
With undeniable results, Williamson began thinking of ways to increase access to theatre education for students outside of Fargo—presenting a unique logistical challenge. Entering from stage left was the Applied Shakespeare program.
Dress Rehearsal
As a hybrid remote/in-person program, the Applied Shakespeare program—which is meant for enthusiasts, teachers and theatre artists–allows students to explore Shakespeare in an interdisciplinary, experiential context. This design fit the bill for Williamson and allowed them to continue teaching while gaining tools and skills to further engage their students.
Benefiting from the diverse range of perspectives from people as passionate as themselves, Williamson realized there were others doing similar work, which encouraged them further.
“One of the really cool things about the program is that our cohort had people from such different backgrounds. I was in Fargo, North Dakota, somebody else is currently a grad student at CU Boulder, another person was from Texas, two people were from Australia and one person was from China,” said Williamson.
“We had our Zoom calls every week where we got this worldwide perspective. That was really cool, because we had these new perspectives, but we also had so much in common. We were all fascinated with Shakespeare, this playwright from hundreds of years ago.”
In addition to forging connections with classmates, Williamson also benefited from the expertise of the faculty, particularly Amanda Giguere—an Applied Shakespeare instructor and author of “Shakespeare & Violence Prevention: A Practical Handbook for Educators”—whose foray into Shakespeare and academia mirrored their own.
“Dr. Giguere has been an amazing resource for me because I'm so education-focused,” said Williamson. “I’ve been able to pick her brain on dramaturgy, education, kids and getting people to care about teaching Shakespeare.”
Most significant for Williamson, however, was the program’s capstone project in which students create work that intersects Shakespeare with a topic, specific population or social issue of their choosing. For Williamson, their capstone subject matter was obvious.
“As a teacher, I rely a lot on lesson plans that other people have done,” said Williamson. “When you try to search for theatre integration plans, you may get a couple activities, but it's not a lot. My capstone is basically a step-by-step outline of a lesson plan with theatre games and exploring Shakespeare-based influences that teachers can bring to their classrooms.”
The best part about these lesson plans? Teachers from around the world will have access to them on Teachers Pay Teachers, don’t have to pay and will be able to immediately implement the plans in their classrooms when they become available.
“I'm in a very rural area in North Dakota, which has a lot of open farmland. There are towns with 50-60 people populations and kids from five different towns all get bused to one school, and the resources for that school can be very low,” said Williamson. “Soon, I'll be able to at least provide these teachers with lesson plans that they can actually use and I can be available to them if they have questions and it doesn't require a whole lot of infrastructure or funding setup from the school administration side of things.”
Curtain Call
From the Mary Rippon stage to a classroom in Fargo, Williamson’s journey demonstrates how a single playwright’s words can ripple across centuries and state lines to make an impact on the next generation.
“In the U.S., there are hundreds of Shakespeare festivals across the country, so there's something about Shakespeare that people really love, and I think that the more that people can engage with it, and the more that people can find ways to keep it alive and relevant, the better off we’ll be.”
Though Williamson is still contemplating how to amplify their impact, there is no question that they will continue to make Shakespeare and new methodologies of theatre instruction accessible to students and teachers from all backgrounds, ensuring the Bard’s lessons endure.