UD REP to participate in 'Sunday with Shakespeare' competition

11 a.m., Feb. 22, 2012--William Shakespeare said it best: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue.”

More than 75 area high school students will do just that as they participate in “Sunday with Shakespeare,” a competition sponsored by the Delaware Branch of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 26, in Loudis Recital Hall of the Amy E. du Pont Music Building on the University of Delaware campus in Newark.

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• May 29: STAR Campus town hall
• June 1-2: Kelmscott Chaucer on view
• June 2: Political chat
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Students will perform monologues, scenes, and sonnets as part of this annual National Shakespeare Competition and members of the University's professional theatre, the Resident Ensemble Players (REP), will judge the competition pieces as well as comment on the festival of scenes.

The ESU Union National Shakespeare Competition began almost 30 years ago with 500 students in New York City. Now the competition involves approximately 60 English-Speaking Union branch communities nationwide. Annually 16,000 high school students and 2,000 teachers participate from Honolulu to Boston. 

Over the program’s history, more than 250,000 young people of all backgrounds have discovered Shakespeare’s writings and communicated their understanding of the Bard’s timeless language and messages.

The first place winner of the Delaware ESU individual competition will receive an all-expense-paid trip to New York City for the national competition. The winner of the national competition will receive an all-expense-paid scholarship to study acting in England. 

The runner-up will receive an all-expense-paid scholarship to attend the American Shakespeare Centre’s Theater Camp in Staunton, Va., and the third place winner will be awarded $500 by The Shakespeare Society in New York. The teacher of the first place winner will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the United Kingdom for summer study.

"Sunday with Shakespeare" will run from 1-5 p.m. and is free and open to the public.