This year marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.

And while it has been more than four centuries since The Bard first wrote his works, they still resonate today.

Rose Hill Middle School in Redmond received a first-hand lesson in this Monday morning as members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s (OSF) School Visit Program (SVP) stopped by the school to perform works for students and show them how Shakespeare could relate to their everyday lives.

In a series of five “Shakespeare smackdowns,” actors William Elsman and Amy Lizardo challenged each other to prove that the playwright’s works are still relevant now. They acted out scenes from his plays, which were paired with scenes from more modern works. Each set of scenes portrayed an issue or theme that the students could be dealing with in their everyday life such as a first kiss or bullying. They also portrayed larger and broader issues such as “immigration and build a wall” and “the plight of the common soldier.”

DEVELOPING A YOUNG AUDIENCE

SVP has been around for more than 45 years and Lizardo said it started when a member at OSF looked out into their audience during a performance and saw nothing but gray hair. She said he realized that unless they were able to attract a younger audience, OSF would cease to exist.

By introducing students to Shakespeare’s works, OSF is creating a new generation of theater lovers and performers.

This was how Lizardo got interested in theater. A troupe came to her rural high school and performed Shakespeare’s “Othello.” The experience started her path into theater. She said if her work with SVP could affect just one student the way it affected her, it is all worth it.

For Elsman, theater and school productions showed him as a fifth-grader that there could be more to school than taking tests and he hopes SVP can do the same for other students.

In addition to the Puget Sound area, Lizardo and Elsman’s SVP tour itinerary includes visits to schools in eastern Washington as well as throughout Oregon. During their six weeks on the road, they will visit about 30 schools. They are one of five actor teams in SVP who are currently touring and visiting schools.

Lizardo said middle schools such as Rose Hill are on the younger end of the schools they visit as they visit high schools more often.

BRINGING LESSONS TO LIFE

Elsman said many times, their visits will work in tandem with English classes as students may also be studying Shakespeare at the same time.

This was how the tour came to make a stop at Rose Hill.

Kristen Becker-Brown — who teaches sixth-grade language arts and social studies, and seventh- and eighth-grade speech and debate — organized the OSF visit and said they tie the visit to a book the sixth-graders read for class called “The Wednesday Wars.” The book tells the story about a junior high school student who is assigned to read Shakespeare plays and quickly realizes that the issues in the plays are not that different from what he’s dealing with in real life.

“We wanted to give (the students) something dramatic,” Becker-Brown said about how they wanted to further demonstrate to students Shakespeare’s relevance in this day and age.

AN INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE

The “dramatic” came in the form of two assembly performances by Lizardo and Elsman.

The performances were interactive, with the actors asking the students questions about their Shakespeare knowledge. While not everyone knew much about The Bard, audience participation and reaction was high — from nervous giggles during the first-kiss scenes, to the not-so-hushed whispers of excitement when Lizardo and Elsman reenacted a light saber fight scene from “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.”

Students could even be heard stating, “That looks real,” regarding the swords Lizardo and Elsman used in a swashbuckling Shakespeare scene.

Following the performances, they held a short question-and-answer session, first asking the students questions before opening up the floor for students to ask the two thespians questions.

The students’ echoed their reactions to the scenes as they asked if the kissing scenes were awkward for Lizardo and Elsman (no, because it wasn’t real) and if the swords were real (they’re made out of aluminum and dulled for safety).

This is the second year SVP has visited Rose Hill since the school switched from a junior high school to middle school.

Becker-Brown said in addition to the students’ participation and interest during the performances, they continue to discuss them throughout the year. She said they may not always remember the exact plays or lines but the students remember the themes Shakespeare wrote about and are able to relate them to their own lives.

“These things are still significant today,” she said.