Cal Shakes Students Discover SMC During Summer Camp

This summer, Saint Mary’s College hosted California Shakespeare Theater’s four-week-long Summer Shakespeare Conservatory. Sixty East Bay thespians in grades six through 12 came from Oakland, Richmond, and beyond to explore Saint Mary’s classrooms, studios, and theater facilities. The students were often spotted practicing iambic pentameter and swordplay beneath the trees across campus, their learning enriched by Saint Mary’s beautiful and welcoming environment.    

“Hosting Cal Shakes’ Summer Conservatory has been a joyful first step in what [Cal Shakes Artistic Director] Eric Ting and I hope will become an ongoing institutional partnership,” said Theatre Program Director Rebecca Engle. “Both institutions share a commitment to social justice, inclusion, and diversity, and we’re thrilled that the Summer Conservatory brought so many newcomers to campus. The campers and their families got a real taste of what makes Saint Mary’s such a remarkable place to go to college.”  

As an added benefit, Cal Shakes hired five Saint Mary’s theater students to work alongside its professional teaching artists as instructional aids, the after-care supervisor, and the technical coordinator for all productions. These paid interns learned invaluable techniques for teaching Shakespeare as well as about diversity and inclusion, childhood development, interacting with children on the autism spectrum, and more.

 “This is an ideal partnership for us,” said Clive Worsley, director of Artistic Learning for Cal Shakes, “mostly because the values of our two organizations are so aligned—around our commitment to excellence in education and to supporting the development of young people as they grow into compassionate and well-rounded human beings.” 

The LeFevre Theatre hosted the camp’s dramatic dénouement, when the students performed in five mini productions of The Tempest, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard III, The Comedy of Errors, and Henry VI, Part 1. Worsley noted that the kids “flipped out” at the grandeur of the theater, and he expected parents to fall in love with Saint Mary’s Theatre Program and campus as well. 

All parties agree the partnership was a success and hope for a repeat performance in summer 2019. Rebecca Engle added, “Shakespeare’s plays were (mostly) written to be done outdoors. As a learning environment, Saint Mary’s offers the Summer Conservatory kids plenty of elbow room—safe spaces indoors and out—where they can breathe in the big ideas, big feelings, and big lives Shakespeare wove into his plays.”