PORT ANGELES — Peninsula College’s Studium Generale will welcome Oregon Shakespeare Festival actors for two performances Thursday.
The free shows will be at 10:20 a.m. and 12:35 p.m. in the gymnasium on the Port Angeles campus at 1502 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Armando McClain and Kaileela Hobby will appear in the morning performance.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. The first program will feature pairings of Shakespeare’s plays — from “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Macbeth,” as well as others — with contemporary scenes that confront related concepts and issues.
The second performance at 12:35 p.m. will feature a shortened version of “Julius Caesar.”
This year’s program is a collaboration between the college and the Sequim High School English department. Sequim Principal Shawn Langston and three faculty members have worked to bring “all the seniors who can join in” to the Shakespeare event, college officials said.
Chelsea Reichner, Jon Eekhoff and Nellie Bridge arranged for more than 160 students to attend the performances.
During the brown bag lunch break between shows, students will have the opportunity to learn from college English department faculty.
Faculty members will present a brief overview, then provide an opportunity for discussion of “Julius Caesar,” “The Great Chain of Being” and Shakespeare’s language in the context of 21st-century audiences.
