Freshman seminar takes Shakespeare from page to stage

If your first exposure to the delights of Shakespearean English came through a slow and painful high school reading of Hamlet, you already know that plays are meant to be experienced rather than read.

Students in McDaniel College’s freshman seminar The Bard: The Books and the Board explore Shakespeare’s words on the page, then give them life on the stage, through scene performances and dramatic readings.

“When you see what you’re reading being performed, it’s easier to understand,” says Megan Balladarsch ’10.

The seminar, one of 33 first-year classes designed to expose freshmen to exciting interdisciplinary courses, is team-taught by English professor LeRoy Panek and Theatre Arts assistant professor Elizabeth van den Berg.

After closely examining and performing portions of Henry IV, Part I, As You Like It, and Macbeth, the course culminates in a trip to the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).

As with all freshman seminars—including Eureka! Revolutionary Moments in Science, The Ghost Story Tradition, and Africa from Book to Film—students benefit from the attendance of upperclass or underclassmen peer mentors, who offer advice to help ease the social and academic transitions from home life to college life.

“The freshmen are so much fun because they have a great new perspective and I enjoy seeing the subject through their eyes,” says peer mentor Megan Carlton ’08, an English and theatre double major.