Sara asked Andrea Chapin:

What is your favourite Shakespeare play and why? Why do you think it is the most special, what stands out for you the most?

Andrea Chapin Hi Sara,

One of my favorites Shakespeare plays is Macbeth: I’m sure the fact that my fourth grade class in Durham, New Hampshire put that play on is a big reason it’s at the top of my list. I still have the purple mimeographed copy of the edited version of the play we used. Under the tutelage of Mrs. Bassett, our gray-haired teacher who wore thick, black-soled tie shoes and glasses on a chain around her neck, we built a theater-in-the-round in the gymnasium and rehearsed after school and on the weekends. I was Lady Macbeth, and I can still, to this day, spout many of my lines.

I’m a big believer in introducing Shakespeare to kids early. Kids get the drama, characters, emotions, and motivations, and even if they don’t quite get all the language and imagery, they get the sound, the rhythm and some of the magic. I remember being astounded and intrigued by the idea of “the milk of human kindness” and that people could read a face like a book, “Your face, my thane, is a book, where men/May read strange matters,” or that someone could act one way while thinking something quite different, “Bear welcome in your eye,/Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent/Flower, But be the serpent under ‘t...”

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