Drama is an important form of artistic expression that is often overlooked within local schools in the Omaha district. The Rose theater is combatting this by performing plays throughout Omaha Public Schools to connect with students around the metropolitan.
The Rose theater performed at Benson High School on April 6th to help advocate for the availability of drama programs for students.
“Every high school has different theater programs, and some are more funded or well attended than others,” Teens N Theater Coordinator Rachel Smart said. “I did not get into theater till high school, I did not know about it, so we want to give students the opportunity to be like, ‘wait, that was cool.’”
This program has continued for years with the intention to educate students of the importance of acting, yet it has experienced trouble in the recent years.
“A company called Nebraska Shakespeare performed Shakespeare tours for schools for a very long time, but because of the effect of COVID’s, they had to shut down,” Smart said.
The Rose felt like students needed this program in their schools. Therefore, they chose to take initiative and add the program back into schools like North, Burke, Central, Westside and Bellevue West.
“I felt really interested in watching this play,” senior Jack Agbeve said, “I never felt like I liked drama, but considering my major requires me to act in a play, this felt really important for me to watch.”
Shakespeare can be complex for students to understand although it is mandatory in many classes. Another driving factor for The Rose theater to create their educational Shakespeare tour was to help students decipher complicated Shakespeare.
“We want to make Shakespeare accessible to students, because it usually gets a wrap for being impossible to understand,” Smart said. “But Shakespeare was actually meant for the common people, for poor people back in the day, so a lot of his jokes are actually kind of for the lower class people and were meant to be accessible.”
The Rose Theater Educational Shakespeare tour’s impact does not end there, the program invites students to partake in the student production of a Shakespeare play in the summer.
“If anyone is interested in being in the show, we have a production of Macbeth this summer in June,” Smart said. “It’s a three week program for 13 to 18 year olds.”
The program also offers scholarships for students to encourage more students to participate in programs that inspire the youth to dive into drama.
