History of the Shakespeare Schools Festival

"What's past is prologue" The Tempest 

1990 Shakespeare - The Animated Tales

Fifteen years ago, twelve of Shakespeare’s best loved plays were abridged to half hour scripts for the S4C and BBC Wales series, Shakespeare – The Animated Tales. Ninety per cent of the UK's secondary schools now use the Tales as their introduction to the language and plays of Shakespeare for years 7-10 (11-15 year olds), making it BBC Education's most popular series. In 2009 the films were made available by the DCSF to all English primary schools.

2000 - Pembrokeshire 8 schools/200 pupils/1 theatre

In 2000, Chris Grace, Director of Animation at S4C and Executive Producer of The Animated Tales, launched the Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF). Pupils from eight schools in Pembrokeshire performed over two nights to sell-out audiences at the Torch Theatre, Milford Haven. All 8 schools are performing again, this year, in our 10th Anniversary Festival.

2001 - London 60 schools/1,500 pupils/3 theatres

October 2001 saw 1,800 pupils from 60 inner city London schools performing in three professional theatres. The Festival culminated in a Gala night at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre, which was attended by Cherie Booth QC and the Secretary of State DCMS, Tessa Jowell, who called the evening “one of the year’s cultural highlights”.

2002 - Wales 100 schools/2,500 pupils/10 theatres

With the support of the Welsh Assembly Government, the Arts Council of Wales and Cardiff 2002, Jenny Randerson AM launched the Wales 2002 Festival in the Old Library, Cardiff on 17th September. 3,000 pupils from 100 schools across the country were given the opportunity to perform in Welsh, English or bilingually, in one of 11 professional theatres.

2003 – 2005 England and Wales

Embarking on a three year cycle to cover the whole of England and Wales, the Festival was launched nationwide at a reception hosted by Cherie Booth QC at 10 Downing St.

2003 – South West, West Midlands & Yorkshire

340 schools/8,500 pupils/32 theatres 8,500 young actors from 340 schools performing in 32 theatres across the regions. Three schools were picked to perform at a private reception for the Washington state visit in Downing Street, in front of an audience which included Tom Stoppard and Phillip Pullman. They went on to perform again for the Arts & Kids 'Million Kids' launch at the Hackney Empire in the presence HRH the Prince of Wales.

2004 – London, North West, East England

380 schools/10,000 pupils/38 theatres The year started with a fund-raising performance at the West End’s Peacock Theatre in the presence of HRH the Prince of Wales and Festival Patron, Kwami Kwei-Armah. In the summer one of the London schools took part in the National Youth Theatre’s 'Shakespeare In The Square event', securing themselves coverage on BBC London’s regional news.

2005 – East Midlands, North East & South East England and Wales plus - BBC/SSF One Night of Shakespeare across the UK 800 schools/20,000 pupils/140 theatres

Tom Stoppard’s abridgement of The Merchant of Venice was premiered at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House by a company of 2004 Festival performers and the National Youth Theatre. During the same year the BBC invited SSF to stage a one-day Festival in 100 theatres across the UK on Sunday July 3rd, as the launch of their Shakespeare Season, One Night of Shakespeare. Schools performed in theatres from the Shetland Isles to Bodmin, from Enniskillen to Margate and set the model for the Festival to become fully UK-national. SSF attained a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

February 2007, Shakespeare Schools Festival, UK-wide 1056 schools/ 22,000 pupils/ 110 theatres

For the first time, the Shakespeare Schools Festival is held across the entire UK between the 5th- 9th February 2007. A Fund-raising dinner was held at the Middle Temple, hosted by Anna Ford and Charles Dance. Cameo performances from participating schools were held at the National Theatre hosted by patron Nicholas Hytner.

February- March 2008, Shakespeare Youth Festival, UK-wide 118 groups/ 35 theatres

The pilot of SYF, which gave 16-21 year olds the opportunity to set up their own theatre company, to direct, produce, manage, tech, market and perform their own 45 minute abridgement of a Shakespeare play.

April 23rd 2008, Shakespeare 24 - to celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday

Shakespeare 24 (S24) was an exciting worldwide Shakespeare performance event beginning in New Zealand and ending 24 hours later in Hawaii on April 23rd 2008. 65 youth groups from 35 countries staged 30 and 45 minute adaptations of Shakespeare's plays at 7pm, local time on Shakespeare’s 444th birthday. Alongside one of the best productions from SYF, Jamilla Gavin's abridgement of 'Measure for Measure' was performed by the National Youth Theatre at Playhouse in Liverpool. The event was appraised by Phil Redmond, director of Liverpool, European Capital of Culture.

5th - 7th July 2008, Shakespeare in the City

As part of the European Capital of Culture year, SSF worked throughout Liverpool, with young companies from the Shakespeare Youth Festival performing in 33 venues and locations from museums and cathedrals to parks and bombed out churches.

October 2008, Shakespeare Schools Festival. 500 Schools / 10,000 pupils / 60 theatres.

To cap off a busy year, Shakespeare Schools Festival returned in the Autumn with 500 schools performing across the UK.

September-November 2009, SSF - 500 schools - 10,000 young people, 67 theatres.

SSF launched a 4-year partnership with the National Theatre (providers of the Teacher Director workshops) and the National Youth Theatre (providers of the Cast workshops). NT directors and actors such as Carl Heap, Dominic Hill, Adrian Lester, Phyllida Lloyd, Hattie Morahan joined Nicholas Hytner in giving master classes for teachers. A contemporary script based on All's Well That Ends Well, written by Lucinda Coxon, was offered by the NT to teachers who had done SSF before.  Jenny Agutter appraised performances at The Unicorn theatre, Southwark and agreed to become a patron.