BYU NewsNet - Young Company Takes 'Twelfth Night' To Schools

Every Tuesday, a group of BYU students load a van with costumes, instruments, props and a curtain.

These students, members of the BYU Young Company, are taking an abbreviated version of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" to elementary and junior high students.

"We like bringing Shakespeare to the kids early in life," said Rebeca Wallin, stage manager for the production and BYU's theater outreach coordinator. "We make it very accessible and fun for them, so they'll enjoy it all through their lives."

When the group arrives, the actors work as a team to set up. The set is minimal and portable, its main feature being a curtain and a framework to hold it. Once things are set up, the performers talk to the students as they come in.

The show itself is geared toward children, said Christy Gordon, a junior from Orem, majoring in psychology, who plays Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Physical gags and a focus on characters help to make the show accessible. In addition, each performer plays a musical instrument.

While parts of the play have been taken out for simplicity and time, this is still very much Shakespeare.

"We kept the language the same," Gordon said. "We keep all the main relationships, the main characters and all the main ideas."

Young Company began in 2000. What started as a Shakespeare club quickly became an outreach program, said Christopher Clark, a doctoral student at BYU and director of "Twelfth Night." At first the focus was on scenes and monologues, but shifted to entire plays.

"We weren't really sure if grade school kids could understand Shakespeare or if they would get really bored," Clark said. "It's never happened. The kids understand Shakespeare a lot more than we give them credit for."

After the show ends, students get another chance to meet the performers and discuss the play.

"There will be some kids that complain as they're coming in," Clark said. "But it's really rare for us to hear that on the way out."

In addition to the elementary school performances, "Twelfth Night" had a sold-out run this semester in BYU's Nelke Theatre. Additional performances have been added for Dec. 5-9. Tickets are available from the Fine Arts Ticket Office in the Harris Fine Arts Center.