On Tuesday 19 April, Honors English 10 students attended the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Merchant of Venice. In class, the students read and performed The Merchant of Venice, as part of our ongoing work on dehumanization and the ways people choose to engage in or rebel against society’s treatment of outsiders. The story is a complex and problematic one that deals openly with antisemitism. This most recent version focuses on Shylock as a tragic hero, with both he and his daughter judged and mistreated because of their ethnicity. Shakespeare Theatre Company also cast African American characters in these roles. Meanwhile, ninth graders in Mr. Baum and Ms. Alston’s classes just finished a unit on sonnets and eighth graders in Ms. Haywood and Ms. Breitman’s classes are reading Much Ado About Nothing and writing sonnets and scripts.
