Shakespeare Monologue Festival
for Students Grades 6-9

February 12, 2009
1:00 pm - Arrive at Imagination Stage
1:15 pm - Warm-Up for All Contestants
1:30 pm - Monologue Festival Begins
Imagination Stage, Bethesda, MD
(click here for directions and parking information)

Home | Guidelines for Coordinators | Guidelines for Students | Suggested Monologues
Student Entrant Form | Judges' Evaluation Form

ALL AREA SCHOOLS are invited to send a participant to the festival.  Participants must be permanent residents of the United States, and must be enrolled in 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th grade.

Overview:

1. The teacher/coordinator in the school indicates interest in participating in an e-mail to crbs@umd.edu.
   
   
2. If more than one student is interested in participating, the coordinator organizes a festival at the local level.  Students select and prepare a monologue, using guidelines for students. The school festival should be judged, if possible, by at least three qualified observers, to be drawn from teachers, actors, directors, or other community members who are knowledgeable about Shakespeare.  Judges select one student from their school to participate in the Shakespeare Monologue Festival.
   
   
3. The coordinator submits a student entrant form to the Center by Thursday, January 29.
   
   
4. Student entrants and their teachers are encouraged to participate in a workshop designed to help students prepare for the festival. The workshop will be held at Imagination Stage on Saturday, January 24, 2009, from 12:45 - 3:15pm, and again on Saturday, February 7, 2009, from 11:00am - 2:00pm. Participants must register for this workshop when they submit their student entrant form.
   
   
5. Entrants, accompanied by coordinators and/or family members, attend the festival at Imagination Stage on Thursday, February 12, 2009.  Participants will introduce themselves and then will identify, in no more than two sentences, the monologue they have chosen and the circumstances in which the monologue occurs.  These passage identifications should demonstrate participants’ familiarity not only with the monologue's immediate context but also with the play in its entirety.  After introducing themselves and identifying their monologues, participants will then perform their monologues of 20 to 25 lines.
   
   
6. Student participants may not be professional or semi-professional actors.  A professional or semi-professional actor is defined as one who has received or is scheduled to receive payment for a professional or semi-professional acting performance during the school year in which the competition occurs.

Detailed guidelines for coordinators, suggested monologues, entrant forms, and directions to Imagination Stage are available at this website and can be faxed, e-mailed, or mailed to your school.

Sponsored by the Center for Renaissance & Baroque Studies and Imagination Stage.

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