Shakespeare's Half Hours

Drama Festival

The Shakespeare Schools Drama Festival is set to expand on a triennial basis across the whole of the UK. Each year the Festival will incorporate three English regions and a Celtic country, with every school in these locations invited to participate. In 2003 the event will be offered to all schools in the South-West, The East Midlands, Yorkshire and Scotland. Over the next three years the Festival aims to put up to 50,000 young actors onto 150 professional stages.

The hope is that, in time, the Festival will be incorporated into the school calendar, becoming a valuable addition to the curriculum. The Festival gives young people and their teachers the opportunity to direct and perform their own interpretation of the plays with the help of professionals from the arts community. It is also an ideal mechanism through which links between communities and their local theatres can be forged.