{"id":23679,"date":"2026-03-24T16:43:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-eighth-graders-to-experience-live-abridged-hamlet-after-studying-shakespeare\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:31:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:31:27","slug":"cortez-middle-school-eighth-graders-to-experience-live-abridged-hamlet-after-studying-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-eighth-graders-to-experience-live-abridged-hamlet-after-studying-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Middle School eighth graders to experience live abridged \u2018Hamlet\u2019 after studying Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez Middle School students have been studying and acting out Shakespeare as part of their curriculum. They will see a Shakespearean play in April. (Lissa Lycan\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Eighth graders at Montezuma Cortez Middle School are preparing to see a professional abridged performance of \u201cHamlet\u201d on April 20. The performance is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival\u2019s outreach program and funded by the LOR Foundation.<\/p>\n

The show is open to the entire eighth grade class as well as any high school students who wish to attend and will be held in the high school auditorium.<\/p>\n

Eighth grade English teacher Lissa Lycan said students have spent more than a month reading aloud and analyzing \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u201d as part of the district\u2019s eighth grade English curriculum. Seeing \u201cHamlet\u201d performed will allow students to hear trained actors speak Early Modern English after learning how to interpret the language.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are familiar now with how to interpret Shakespearean language and are ready to experience a professional production of a play,\u201d Lycan said. \u201cI am so impressed with their willingness to tackle something this difficult and their correct understanding of such complex writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October, a group of eighth graders attended a performance of \u201cHamlet\u201d by the theater company Merely Players in Durango after receiving complimentary tickets to a sold-out show. Lycan said many students reacted enthusiastically despite having limited prior knowledge of the story, later quoting lines and sharing inside jokes from the production.<\/p>\n

Eighth grade student Kinsley Decker wrote to the Merely Players about the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis play filled me with emotions, from grief, to sadness, as well as happiness and laughter,\u201d Decker said.<\/p>\n

She said the scene in which Hamlet\u2019s uncle confessed to murdering Hamlet\u2019s father was especially powerful and nearly brought her to tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt truly showed how the human race can be so evil as he spoke of how he killed his brother,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I could come to see this performance again, I truly would.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not every middle school student is eager to attend a Shakespeare play, Lycan said many students have embraced the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare is another language entirely,\u201d she said. \u201cIt requires a different level of perseverance to work through a Shakespeare text, and when students succeed at something this challenging, they feel a moment of mastery.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival\u2019s outreach program brings professional theater into schools, allowing students to see Shakespeare performed live after studying the texts in class.<\/p>\n

\"Cortez
Cortez Middle School students have been learning how to interpret complicated Shakespearean language. (Lissa Lycan\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

students have been studying \u2018A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,1060,21,147,155,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77028,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23679\/revisions\/77028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23679"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}