I had never been really interested in Shakesperare. In fact, all I knew about him was what I had learned from movies and TV shows. But I was really excited when I heard that some actors would come to act in our classroom.

When they finally came, they started to play creepy music and to act by saying a beautiful monologue out loud. At first I was a little bit shocked since I am not used to seeing people act so dramatically as they do in the theatre, but after a while, I got into the monologue and it felt like I was sitting in front of the stage and not in the classroom. They performed some extracts from Shakespeare’s plays that kept being interrupted by Sandro, one of the three actors that had come to act for us. He would explain thing about the monologue we had just seen, facts about how Shakespeare wrote it, and especially how they wanted to focus on the importance of supporting characters. The actors would start arguing with each other about how annoying it was Sandro interrupting the play all the time. This gave a comical sense to what we were watching.

After a few minutes, they went on to play a little extract from ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Sergio started talking in an Andalusian accent which made us laugh because it came out as something really random. They tried to highlight this supporting Andalusian character who plays a servant that brings a letter to Romeo so he will be able to attend the party where he will meet Juliet. If this character did not exit, Romeo would not be able to meet Juliet. Sandro also explained that his accent was strategically meant to make people laugh, the same as Shakespeare would use, let’s say a Scottish accent in his plays.

After playing an extract from one of the most famous plays ever written, Adán and Sergio, the other two actors, still complained about not having a big role so they both got to perform ‘Romeo and Juliet’. To decide who would play Romeo and who Juliet, they started a play packed with puns. Finally, they started preparing the set for the scene while Adán told Sergio how he had auditioned for a big role in another play. This was just an excuse to start a dialogue with lots of Latin expressions that we use on a daily basis, just to show us the importance of this “dead” language in our society. I really enjoyed this part, and I wish I could have recorded it to show it to all the people who say it is useless to study Latin nowadays.

The Romeo and Juliet bit was truly hilarious. It showed both characters waking up and discussing about the time it was judging by the sounds different birds were making- a lark for the day and a nightingale for the night. This was an excuse for explaning how the people from the 16th century understood the reference, which led Sandro to justify that Shakespeare wrote his play for peasants, not just for refined people. We were told of the importance of theatre, as people did not have many more ways of entertainment. Plays had several intervals as they were really long, and none of the roles could be played by a woman, son when they had to play a woman, they would choose an adolescent boy with a high pitched voice.

They ended with the skull scene from Hamlet. This part was touching and for me, kind of disturbing and fascinating since there used to be a brain with ideas inside that skull, and all it remained from him was just a cranium. It turned out it had belonged to Yorick, the king’s jester. When everything was over, they answered some of the questions we asked about being an actor- how hard it was to live off it, if it was hard to learn the script, how they felt about acting in front of a class, what meant for them to move the public, and so on. When time was up, we all applauded. They really did a great job. We even got to touch the skull, which seemed to be real. I wish we had more activities like this.

style="text-align: justify;">"I was very surprised by how good they were because they were able do their job perfectly well in a small space very close to us, connecting with us all the time. I have learnt a lot of interesting things such as the fact that comedy is like math. If you don’t follow the rhythm, the performance goes wrong. I was also struck by the amount of time you have to invest in training and practicing to become good actors." Vlada Ciuntu

"In December, a group of three actors came to school not only to give a performance but also to teach us a little bit about the theatre world and most of all, about Shakespeare. First they started playing some parts of Shakespeare’s plays as if they were reharsing them so they played both the actors and the characters. I think that was a great idea because that made you understand the feelings of the actors better as well as the author and the meaning of each play."  Ana Lobeto

"The performance was very good and I enjoyed meeting the actors and giving our opinion about the play."Claudia Fernández de la Mela

"In my opinion, the play was excellent, fun to watch and interesting thanks to the information they gave us. Besides, the actors answered all our questions and were extremely kind. If anyone has the opportunity to watch this play, go and see it! You will have a great time and you will not regret it!" Elsa Gómez

"Their last performance was Hamlet. I think it was the best, and the most emotional." Manuel Angulo

"In my opinion the purpose of the play is to make young people want to go and see plays so that they do not think that the theatre is boring, quite to the contrary." Eric Antolín

"The actors wanted to teach us the importance of supporting actors." José A. Bercianos

"The actors said their job was hard because they must make sense with a lot of gestures and with the modulation of their voice. They also nee very good memory because they need to remember a lot of lines, and if they forget them, they will spoil the performance."  Carmen Gutiérrez

“The actors were excellent and the performance was perfect”  Carolina Fernández

“It was such a pity I wasn’t there because William Shakespeare is one of my favourite authors ever.” María Buenaposada

"I wish I had seen it with my own eyes” Arancha Gutiérrez

“Alter the play, they were talking to us, and they were funny, nice, friendly, and really chatty!” Laura de Blas

“We were lucky to see the performance of Jesters and Servants. Suporting characters are the ones that trigger the action”  Eva Coso

"I had never lived this experience of feeling part of a play. Every time the play stopped seemed so real I wasn’t sure whether they were acting or not. When they played Romeo and Juliet, even the actor was moved."Alba Liaño

“These actors and the way they interacted with the audience was very enjoyable.”  Betania Macías