Featured Photo: My class at Shakespeare’s School in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
The Summer of Our Content!
ACU Study Abroad in England was one of the most fun, enriching, and challenging experiences of my undergraduate degree and time at ACU! My group of eight other girls, both English and other majors, had me laughing the entire time, and I had the best experience with them! They really made the trip exceptional, and I have Study Abroad to thank for many new friendships. Getting to know each of my classmates and experiencing life abroad with them was definitely the highlight of my trip and made every long bus ride, every second of sore feet, and every weird hour of jetlag so worth it!!
My Study Abroad class was ENGL 440: Shakespeare on Stage and centered around how to produce William Shakespeare’s plays in the twenty-first century. We saw ten different productions of eight different plays, ranging from amateur theater in the park to professional companies in Shakespeare’s Globe! As a class, we visited two important cities in Shakespeare’s life—Stratford-Upon-Avon, where Shakespeare grew up, and London, where he made his writing career! It was very exciting and surreal to see significant places like where Shakespeare was born, grew up, traveled in Oxford, and performed plays in London. Walking in his footsteps was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, made even more inspirational for a class of English majors.
Learning about Shakespeare’s life and reading his plays in a classroom, though interesting, enriching, and important, pales in comparison to standing in the room where he was born while a local tour guide discusses his family business or reading lines from Romeo and Juliet where it was first performed. One of my favorite trips was our first performance at the world-famous Shakespeare’s Globe—a reconstructed version of the original playhouse from the 1600s. As a class, we saw Much Ado About Nothing and stood in line for about two hours to be in the front row. During the performance, we stood on the floor and leaned our elbows onstage, just like they did at the original globe. We were so close to the actors that many of them interacted with us, talked to us, or used us as props!
Study Abroad is classified as experiential learning, which describes this course perfectly—immerse, experience-based, and invested in bringing our lives as closely to Shakespeare’s as possible. William Shakespeare is one of the most influential figures in the history of playwriting and the English language, so it was particularly impactful to see copies of the first folio—the first typed collection of all of his plays—in Stratford and London. Following Shakespeare’s footsteps through his hometown, especially the home where he was born and raised and the church where he is buried, really helped me to understand the playwright’s life and textualize the places and times he lived in! I felt more connected to both him as a person and the beautiful stories he created by seeing that new part of the world through his eyes.
Sorry, Richard III, but this was definitely not the summer of our discontent!
The set for Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe, London.
Me, Maddie Conatser, and Macy McAdams at Shakespeare’s Globe, London.
Shakespeare’s burial site at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-Upon-Avon.
Romeo and Juliet mural at the location of the original Curtain Theater where the play is thought to have been first performed.