Youth drama festival in which students from more than 350 schools perform abridged Shakespeare plays on the Belgrade stage.
The Shakespeare Schools Festival comes to the Belgrade Theatre on Thursday 19 and Friday 20 November, with performances starting at 7pm and running for about two hours each night. It's the flagship project of the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation, a cultural education charity that's worked with more than 300,000 young people over the years. Billed as the world's largest youth drama festival, it gives students from more than 350 schools a professional stage to perform abridged Shakespeare plays for their community — the culmination of months of work in school rehearsal rooms.
The foundation's aim is to build curiosity, empathy, aspiration, self-esteem, literacy and teamwork through the process. Its patron, the writer Philip Pullman, has said that every child in every school ought to have the chance to experience it. Actor and screenwriter Ben Willbond put it another way: 'If Shakespeare had been sitting in the audience, he would have loved everything he saw.'
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In Coventry, the festival takes place in Venue B2 at the Belgrade. Tickets are £16.50 standard, £14.50 concession, and £13 each for groups of 20 or more. Both nights start at 7pm and run for roughly two hours.
