There are witches under the choke cherry tree! The tree is in bloom, incredibly pink. The floppy brims of black paper witch hats flutter in the spring breeze and catch the petals as they fall. A drunken porter is refusing to answer the insistent knocking that calls him to the door. Bloody-handed, a husband and wife are planning to get away with murder. Traffic stops! A woman hastily parks her car and rushes into the Highland Middle School office to report, "There are witches under the choke cherry tree and it is not Halloween!"

We whisper. It's only us. We're getting ready for Macbeth.

When Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage," we felt he meant it. All the school's our stage, and we "strut and fret our hour upon it" mightily! Puck leaps out from behind a hidden stairwell. Star-crossed lovers die tragically in the upper addition hallway. Portia pleads Antonio's case across a row of desks stacked closely and precariously together. Tricksters giggle at Malvolio's foolishness behind a hedge of mops and buckets borrowed from Mrs. Spentos, our sympathetic patron and school custodian. Richard III dies a gruesome death at the end of a paper sword not too far from the new lunchroom. Perhaps he thought he could find a horse there? Many students insist it's possible.

Our community, located near a large urban center, attracts many talented actors who fuel frequent productions of plays by William Shakespeare. Early in the school year, I select a production that seems appealing. This affords me the opportunity to order tickets for the best seats in the house. I believe it is important for students to view a play intimately. The final celebration for our study of Shakespeare will be seeing a professional production.

Preparation takes about a month. I secure copies of the text. If a version of the play is in Albert Cullum's (1968) Shake Hands with Shakespeare, I start there. When there are no student versions, I use the original text and edit it directly on the copy. Most students prefer the original rendering.

I invite students to memorize selected passages. Romeo and Juliet yields many choices. Richard III had only one choice: "Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by the sun of York..." (from Act I, scene i). Students have a week to commit the lines to memory. Every day students attempt to recite the lines before the class. This emphasis on spoken language produces an excellent listening audience.

I assist psychological set construction by briefly describing Shakespeare's Globe. I tell my students that most plays were done in daylight (Papp & Kirkland, 1988). I explain the three-level theater and the significance of placing characters at a particular level: angels and fairies appear at the top; ghosts emerge from beneath the stage. I stress the intimacy and popularity of the theater. The students are amazed to hear that Shakespeare's plays were not attended by English teachers in tuxedos, but by working folks from the street for whom the theater was not so different from our daily television soap operas. These "mechanicals" went often, frequently seeing a single play many times. The performance was intimate, with most of the audience standing at the apron of the stage. A soliloquy was not spoken by the actor as if he were alone, but to a group of "goundlings" who might discourse with him, answer his questions, and offer advice. For such a lively, interactive audience, the play had to be exciting. "Be prepared for plenty of innuendo and violence," I warn. All students respond positively on this account. They believe that Shakespeare provides them with authentic inclusion into the adult world.

Our lack of a proscenium stage is insignificant to students who stack up desks as a balcony, pose a male Juliet upon it, and track a very inconstant moon across a ceiling-sky with an overhead projector. "We have delayed long enough," I yell. "Push back the desks--let our rehearsals begin!" The front of the classroom becomes our stage. We keep chairs, stools, and tables ready in case we need them. Our props are cups, towels, a tablecloth or two, and red construction paper for bloody wounds. A rolled piece of chart paper will make a fine rapier. A pencil is an excellent dagger. Shakespeare used few sets and most of his props reside in his language.

An Ariel suspended on a trapeze over the audience misspeaks a line from Ariel's Song. The fully engaged adolescents below helpfully whisper the correction up to him. Later, at a post-play discussion he mentions it. "I knew you knew this play," he says, "when I heard you speaking the lines beneath me."

I take a major part or two in the first scene. As Orlando in Twelfth Night, I recline on a table wrapped in a paper tablecloth and extol the soothing effects of music. I take all four parts in the opening of Julius Caesar and, after three performances, I realize I have memorized the entire first scene. I stuff a towel in the back of my sweater and become the hunchback Richard the Third. I am very silly! All my dignity is gone. I moan and groan and complain. I shout and scream and fall down and roll around. I let the students see that Shakespeare is wildly funny. There is no reverence in my voice, nor lofty tones or faux English accent. As I rock and roll through my part of the opening scene, I drag my audience in to participate. I force them to read lines to my character, to bellow as loudly as I, to be the fool and react to the fool. After the first scene is over, my student-actors are unafraid. I withdraw and become the director.

Our classroom staging is a collaboration where lines are carefully read to determine what Shakespeare might have wanted. Everyone gets a speaking role. Even the poorest reader can handle a small part. Players are encouraged to overact, to ham it up. I direct and redirect them until I am satisfied. We invite an audience -- usually some other class. They critique our efforts and we work some more. There is great method in our madness. Looking for character motivation, we discover that Macbeth's ambition fits perfectly in a season of presidential primaries. Incensed by the stubbornness of Juliet's father, Steve says, "If the parents had listened to those kids, they'd be alive today!" For these students the characters have become real.