Twelfth Night Performance

Over the last few weeks, Senior 2 students have been reading Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare in their English Liberal Arts classes. A primary focus for the unit has been to analyze the play's characters, so as a part of their final project for this unit, students were tasked with performing a scene from the play. They could choose any scene from the play they liked, so long as each group member had a relatively balanced number of speaking lines. Part of the objective was to encourage students to use their understanding of the characters' personalities and motivations to inform their performance choices. Students were expected to be confident with their lines (students performed in the original Shakespearean English), ideally having them memorized, as well as to make conscious, creative choices in their staging, such as costumes, props, actions, and facial expressions.

Dalton teachers and students were invited to watch the performance of Twelfth Night. Students prepared costumes and props in accordance with the characters. The audience spoke highly of the students' fluent oral English, exaggerated body language, and confident performance.