Project 38 focused on helping local students overcome "Shakesfear"

“Shakesfear” is a condition that Jay Woffington, executive director of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, says affects maybe 1 in 3 Americans and needs to be promptly eradicated. So Cincy Shakes is doing its part to introduce students to Shakespeare in a way that honors the playwright and his works while engaging youth through live performance.
 
“We do a great disservice by pretending he was a novelist, and by doing so we teach our students his stories are unintelligible, dense, boring — and none of this is true,” Woffington says. “But there is a solution. In the same way we don't get our appreciation of Bach and Beethoven by reading the sheet music, we shouldn't limit our appreciation of reading the works in school. They’re not books. They’re plays.”
 
Woffington says actors, costumes, scenery and audience are key elements that “make theater,” so live performance is necessary when sharing Shakespeare with audiences who aren't already familiar with or appreciative of The Bard.
 
Project 38 is an educational initiative the company has launched to connect its teaching artists with more than 1,000 students and faculty from 38 local schools to bring Shakespeare’s 38 recognized works to life.
 
The project will culminate with a festival April 15-22 at Memorial Hall, where students will have the opportunity to showcase and share their work with a live audience.
 
“We do 250 performances every year of classic plays that have stood the test of time … and kids come,” Woffington says. “Twenty percent of our audience is students, kids under the age of 18. We see over 30,000 kids a year in Cincinnati, and it works. Student comprehension improves 30-40 percent more than reading the play alone.”
 
Do Good:
 
• Support the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company by donating.

• Learn about the CSC’s educational opportunities and consider getting your school or student involved.

• Buy tickets to an upcoming performance and enjoy an extraordinary live theater performance. The current production of Little Women runs through March 21, followed by Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew April 3-25.