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Written by: Jade Fox

Published: 21 May 2012

Last week teacher Verna Rogers' advanced English class went on a field trip to the Ashland Shakespeare Festival.

The trip was in the town of Ashland, Ore., and the students stayed for four days and three nights.

The students who were able to go were Ashlee Ables, Erika Woods, Ashley Gravlee, Desiree Bauer, Corrisa Schonderwoerd, Shania Jones, Shawnie Chandler, Dylan Ward, Jade Fox  and Tonya Smith, and the trip was chaperoned by Rogers and Cheryl Sullivan.

Everybody stayed in the Ashland Commons and walked into town, which was about five blocks or so away.

The students viewed three plays: the first was a mix of “Medea,” “Macbeth” and “Cinderella,” plus “Troilus and Cressida” and “Animal Crackers.”

The first play was a mix of “Medea” – the Greek tragedy where the warrior Jason takes a foreign princess, Medea, as his bride to gain power, and after she bears him sons he casts her aside for a new bride and gets her banished, so she plots revenge against him, his wife and the king – and “Macbeth, where Macbeth is told of possible glory, but to get the glory he has to kill the king and the king¹s son to attain his power, and Cinderella (which is self-explanatory).

The play was mixed, showing all three of the stories happening simultaneously, showing all of the similar themes.

Toward the end of the play the story started to move forward to present times and the characters were slowly shown out of costume. The play ended up being an interesting and entertaining mix of
three seemingly different stories.

The second play was “Troilus and Cressida,” which has two lovers trying to stay together through a large war after Cressida was traded to the other side of the war for a soldier.

The language was kept the same but the setting and clothing was changed to better relate to modern times. The entire play was very well acted out and well modernized.

The third play was the Marx Brothers classic “Animal Crackers.” The play was basically about a house party in a wealthy neighborhood that was crashed, and a very famous painting was stolen from it. Anybody who has ever seen a Marx Brothers play knows explaining the plot is pointless though.

All of the actors in the play were very convincing and the audience was constantly in stitches. In the end it was a wonderful revival of an old story.

When the students weren't at the play house they were able to explore the beautiful town of Ashland, and all of its unique culture.

Whether or not the students were a fan of plays or not this trip will be a cherished memory for a long time.

That is all for now, have a great week!

Jade Fox is a student at Carlé Continuation High School in Lower Lake, Calif.