Seeing a play brings the whole story to life. Chairman Michael Farris talks with his guest Deborah Taylor-Hough about experiencing Shakespeare, today on Home School Heartbeat.
Michael Farris:
Debi, after reading Charles and Mary Lamb’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, you read the actual play with your kids. What did you do next?
Deborah Taylor-Hough:
Well, Shakespeare didn’t really write his plays just to be read out of books. He wrote them to be performed on stage by live actors with an audience. So we borrowed a videotape from the library of a New York Shakespearean festival’s production of the play. And we couldn’t find a video for one of the other plays we wanted to see so we checked out an audiotape version.
Mike:
How did your children react to these presentations?
Deborah:
Well, the children loved the video of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My 7-year-old son even watched it several times on his own just for fun. Even my 3-year-old was able to follow the basic plot of the story. Watching the video made all of us so excited about the idea of seeing a live production of the play that we were beginning to feel like it was an old friend. The audiotape version was a little harder to enjoy, so I really recommend videos of the plays if possible.
Mike:
This sounds like something moms could easily do. Tomorrow we’ll talk about your experience at a live Shakespeare performance. I’m Mike Farris.
