When the famous question "wherefore art thou Romeo?" was asked last week the answer was simple - at Springwood High School, starring in a special performance by the Bell Shakespeare company.
The show was part of the Sydney company's Actors at Work education program. Noting the devastating impact of last October's bushfires in Springwood, Winmalee and Yellow Rock, Bell Shakespeare donated the September 16 performance to Springwood High School, who then invited students from Winmalee High School along as well.
Bell Shakespeare actors Rowan Davie, Jack Starkey-Gill, Jane Mahady and Stacey Duckworth kept the audience of more than 120 students entertained by setting a cracking pace, stepping off stage at times to perform in the aisles and finishing the show with a question and answer session.
After the show Springwood High Year 9 students Alfred Sefton and Chadwick Wanschers - who are currently studying Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - met the actors backstage and volunteered to be in a filmed interview for the Actors at Work program about what they learnt from the performance.
A Bell Shakespeare spokeswoman said it was the first time the Actors at Work program performed at a Blue Mountains school.
"Bell Shakespeare has two groups of four actors and what we do is take a Shakespeare text and adapt it so that high school students can get the most out of the shows," she said.
"We keep it fast-paced and interactive, we add modern twists and humour at times, especially in between scenes as we want to make the shows as relevant as possible for the students."
