Rider hosts 10th annual Shakesperience May 24 and 25

Rider University’s Shakesperience is celebrating its 10th annual festival on May 24 and 25 in the BLC Theater, and the Rider community is welcome as always to catch secondary student performances of Shakespeare in the afternoon.

The festival is organized and directed by Dr. Kathleen Pierce, associate professor in the School of Education. Held over two days with about 200 middle and high school students attending per day, the festival conducts morning workshops in the theater arts by teaching artists and faculty members Dr. Terry Pertuit, assistant professor in the School of Education, and Dr. Timothy Urban, adjunct assistant professor in the Westminster College of the Arts (WCA). 

For the 10th year, John Dalesandro ’04 will serve as festival manager organizing and running participants through morning workshops and on-stage performances. Among the alumni returning to Rider with their own students as performers are Kaitlin Losito ’11 and Nicky Singer ’13. 

Cam Magee, who hosts the Folger Shakespeare Library’s weeklong Secondary Student Shakespeare Festival in Washington, D.C., has presided over Shakesperience every year since its inception as the Mistress of the Revels. Magee also teaches a morning workshop at the festival on Shakespeare Aloud.

The name of the festival is a combination of Shakespeare + experience, and the rules governing students’ creation of performance pieces require that they get involved with the meaning, words and physicality as they interpret from Shakespeare’s texts.

Shakesperience acknowledges the generous support of Janssen Pharmaceuticals. 

Everyone in the Rider community is welcome to attend the performances of the 10th annual Shakesperience, which take place Tuesday and Wednesday, May 24 and 25, from noon to 3:30 pm. For more information, please contact Dr. Kathleen Pierce at [email protected].