Queen Anne's School Celebrates Shakespeare Day!

On Thursday 23 April, Queen Anne’s girls celebrated the birthday of one of the world’s greatest writers, William Shakespeare. Born in 1564, this would be Shakespeare’s 456^th birthday!

Although this year we are unable to celebrate at school, our students were able to do so in fun and creative ways at home.

The 4s were tasked with writing and performing an original translation of Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be’ soliloquy. This gave our girls an exciting challenge, where they were encouraged to present their monologue creatively and let their ideas run wild…and they certainly did not disappoint!

They worked in pairs to record and edit video performances from home.  Poppy T and Holly D wrote and performed this in the style of Katy Perry, Melissa Z and Francesca W to ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ by One Direction, and Hannah S and Alice R performed a rap version, all with dance moves and costumes included!

The English Department’s fortnightly competition also continues, with the deadline for entries of ‘A Poem from my Window’ soon approaching.

In addition to this the English department also launched a Shakespeare themed art/photography competition, asking students to select a play that inspires them. They were tasked with producing a creative response to the title in the form of a drawing or photo combined with an explanation of how this links to the title.

One particular entry from Dr Green compared the time which Shakespeare was writing his plays, to the current day with the revised title of ‘Much Ado About Something’. At the time Shakespeare was writing in 1597, there was a spread of the plague. Because of this, Shakespeare suffered frustrations at the closures of theatres and the effect this had on producing his work.  As a result he turned to writing sonnets, showing that even in the most trying of times poetry provided comfort and creative stimulation for him.

We hope that our community enjoyed our Shakespeare Day and glad that it is providing another creative outlet for our Queen Anne’s writers.  We are looking forward to receiving more submissions over the coming weeks and sharing their creativity with you!