Brushing up their Shakespeare, young actors go back to school

Education has long been part of Bell Shakespeare’s ethos, and the company is again sending its schools program on the road.

Bell Shakespeare Players including Will Bartolo, Angela Tracey Tran and Nicola Bowman have resumed visits to schools in regional NSW. John Feder

The slings and arrows of this COVID-blighted year have forced Bell Shakespeare to cancel most of its main stage performances, but the national company has been channelling its energy into its important education programs.

The company had just opened its first production for the year, Hamlet, when the lockdown closed the door on that play and the rest of its 30th anniversary season.

Artistic director Peter Evans says he was able to “salvage the live experience” by reactivating tours by the Players company of young actors, and by making archival videos of past performances available for viewing by school groups.

The Players — including actors Will Bartolo, Angela Tracey Tran and Nicola Bowman — typically travel about seven months of the year visiting schools around the country. After the initial lockdown, the groups of three actors were able to resume some tours to schools in NSW and the ACT.

The groups have been performing adapted excerpts from Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.

Evans said it was important for students to be able to experience Shakespeare’s plays as works of theatre, not only as words in a textbook. “We have these charismatic actors who are extremely good at connecting with students, and very good at making the text come alive,” he said. “The plays were written to be heard.”

Evans said Bell Shakespeare had negotiated with actors and creative teams to make video recordings of past stage productions available to schools. The archive recordings are made for in-house use, not for distribution, and the company has paid the actors and creative teams for them to be used in this way.

Streaming video of Bell performances could also be a solution to the COVID-safe era of theatre presentation when ticket-holders may be required to stay at home.

“It seems to me an infinitely sensible thing to do, but it’s going to require quite a lot of negotiation,” Evans said. “This is how we have to think if we want to rebuild confidence and make the theatre experience safe. We’re learning things from this crisis that could be good for a national company like us.”

Education was a central part of John Bell’s mission when he founded Bell Shakespeare in 1990 and presented its first performances of Hamlet in 1991.

“The experience of good teaching oftentimes changes lives, and this particular program has always been central to John’s vision of supporting teachers and letting students experience live theatre, even if it’s three actors in a school gym,” Evans said.