High school students bring the art of Shakespeare to the South L.A. community

This week, a group of students from Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School brought the art of William Shakespeare to the parents, kids and community of South Los Angeles. 

Commitment, love for the art and empowerment were the key ingredients to the student’s performance of one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 

The play, led and performed by the students as part of the Young Shakespeareans (TYS), a Los Angeles-based organization that helps students in underserved communities produce high-quality theatrical and performing arts productions, was set in 1920s Mexico and was based on the comedy written by Shakespeare. 

Students, all ninth to eleventh graders, prepared for seven weeks before performing on the play’s opening day on Thursday, April 3. 

“Many of the students here today, this is the first time they have ever acted. For many, this is the first time they participate in anything like this. I’m so incredibly proud of them and the staff that helped them get to this point,” Allison Korman, TYS’s founder and artistic director, told CALÓ News on the play’s opening night. She said students practiced for six hours a week for seven weeks, with all rehearsals held after school and apart from students’ regular class times and homework. 

When it was founded in 2010, the organization looked to create space for youth to engage in rigorous training, production and performances to help build their confidence and empower them to showcase adapted plays in the English language. 

“It’s more than a theater production; it’s an empowerment program to show these kids who they are and what they are capable of,” Korman said. “It's all about them discovering who they are through this work and growing past any limitations of self-expectations and blowing past the expectations from others.” 

In Spring 2023, a production design team of TYS high school alumni was hired to design a new production for "A Midsummer Night's Dream," creating a soundtrack, scenics and costumes evoking 1920s post-revolutionary Mexico that celebrated their families' culture and heritage. 

Although some of the lines and artistry of the original script of  "A Midsummer Night's Dream" were altered and changed, the romantic comedy played by the students held the same essence as that of Shakespeare. 

The TYS’s performance follows the story of four young Athenian lovers who get entangled in a series of magical mishaps in a forest. Fairies, magic, love, mischief and comedy are all successfully portrayed in the approximately one-hour play. 

Laura Castro Coy, who recently immigrated to the United States from Colombia, plays one of the fairies in the play. With most of her lines in Spanish, the language she is most comfortable in, she said she felt immensely proud of herself and her peers. Despite not being fluent in English, the 15-year-old said she has loved every minute of her time with the TYS’s chapter at Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School. 

“The language barrier, it’s hard. It can be difficult,” Castro-Coy said. “I understand most of the play and instructions during rehearsals and even if I do miss or do not get something right away, my peers would often help me understand.”

She said she decided to give theater a chance after her algebra teacher talked about TYS. “I had no expectations; I didn’t think much of it. But I came in one day and I was like, ‘Yes, de aquí soy,’ and I never left.” 

The majority of the performers, producers and designers of the TYS branch of Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School are Latino youth like Matthew Jacobo, a junior. He said he had never really given acting a thought until he realized he needed to begin adding some type of experience to his resume. “I did not have much to put into my resume, so I saw this as an opportunity to not just act but to also be more prepared for the world outside of school,” Jacobo said. 

Jacobo, whose character brings out many of the big laughs, says the thing he enjoys the most about these live performances is making people laugh. “I see theater as a way to express myself,” he said. “The smiles and laughs of people and the applause make it such a fun experience.” 

Although Jacobo said he has not given thought to theater past high school, he said he has really enjoyed getting better at a craft. “I like getting to know what I can improve on. I love the constructive criticism that we get,” he said.

Hope Brown, executive director at TYS, said the organization began to make sure all students, including those living in places like South L.A., where arts and extracurricular activities are oftentimes underfunded, have equitable opportunities to experience and partake in the art of theater regardless of race, color, ethnicity, language, origin, religion or socio-economic status.

“We have created a pipeline throughout different grade levels, so youth get introduced to theaters and plays as early as elementary school,” he told CALÓ News.  

Brown also said he hopes the work and creations of playwrights like Shakespeare inspire young kids, just like he was once inspired by them. Before TYS, Brown worked with thousands of schoolchildren as a drama facilitator at the iLead Charter School in Pacoima and with the Kingsmen Shakespeare Education Tours.

He said Shakespeare’s timeless work is not found by students until very later in life in their educational career and hopes TYS could change that. “I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I wasn’t given the opportunity to perform Shakespeare,” he said. 

The TYS partners with various schools in South L.A., including West Vernon Avenue Elementary School, John Adams Middle School and Orthopedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School, to deliver on-site, after-school theater arts programs. 

Shirley Macias, who is now an 11th grader at Ortho, said she has been with TYS since elementary. “I’ve loved it,” she said. 

Macias, who plays one of the four lovers in the play, said she was afraid at first that many of the students at Ortho would not be interested in joining TYS or participating in the plays. “At first I thought not a lot of people were going to show up, but in reality, so many people signed up to be part of the play and I think that just speaks to the need and want of Latinos when it comes to the arts and theater,” she said. 

Macias said that although sometimes challenging, being on stage and finishing a show is very rewarding. “It’s not only the after-school rehearsal with the team; everyone here also puts in a lot of their own time,” she said. “You have to memorize your lines, your stage placements, the words you have to enunciate and your cues.” 

She also said that the skills she has learned through the programs have also served her outside of her regular classes. “Being part of this makes me very proud. In English class when we read Shakespeare, I know what is going on and that's given me a lot of confidence.”

Korman said she has been happy to see TYS growing and has also heard of the need for programs like these in more schools within underserved communities. “We are a theater on the go and people have been asking us to come to other schools, and if we have the capacity, we want to,” she said. “Our kids are deserving of this.” 

On Friday, April 4, one performance will be offered at 5:30 p.m.

The event is free to the public, but an RSVP is required to attend. 

For more information and to RSVP, please contact Nadja Hoyer-Booth at TheYoungShakespeareans@gmail.com.