Students Attend Interscholastic Colloquium

On Friday, February 17, 17 junior AP English Literature and Composition students in Catherine Collins-Vecino and Leigh Block’s classes headed to Cistercian Preparatory School for an Interscholastic Colloquium celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of William Shakespeare’s First Folio. The focus of the colloquium was on two plays, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. Students from Cistercian Preparatory School, Jesuit College Preparatory School, The Hockaday School, The Oakridge School and Fort Worth Country Day participated in the colloquium. FWCD has been attending these DFW interscholastic colloquia since 2013. This was our first colloquium since COVID. 

In the fall semester, all AP Literature students read, analyzed, discussed and wrote essays over Much Ado About Nothing. Those who wanted submitted their essays to the colloquium. Six students were chosen to read their essays at the colloquium. Those students were: Abigail Proell, Lily Hyde, James Thomas, Jack Cimo, Christopher Petty and Ginny Caceres. They represented FWCD incredibly well, reading their insightful analyses, fielding audience questions and posing discussion questions of their own. 

Besides the readers, 11 other students attended the colloquium. The day’s activities included hearing their peers around DFW read their essays and participating in lively discussions over the plays, participating in acting workshops over both plays, singing “Sigh No More” from Much Ado About Nothing, viewing a First Folio held by the Dallas Public Library, viewing costumes from the Kenneth Branaugh film adaptation of  Much Ado About Nothing, and hearing two addresses, one on the cultural significance of the Shakespeare’s First Folio delivered by Friar Gregory Schweers of Cistercian and the second on “Shakespeare, Player-Centered Learning, and Classical Education” delivered by Dr. Travis Curtright, Chair of the Humanities and Liberal Studies Program, Professor, and Director of Shakespeare in Performance at Ave Maria University. 

Our very own Evi Scaling Brown was chosen by Dr. Curtright to play Beatrice from Much Ado and present a short dialogue with her acting partner from Cistercian to the entire colloquium.

Juniors in attendance:

Rhea Alexander

Blake Brown

Jack Cimo

Evan Dickerson

Vail Dickey

Sheena Gandhi

Benjamin Hoppe

Lily Hyde

Leena Keylani

Laura Marques

Carolina Murrin

Christopher Petty

Abigail Proell

Evi Scaling Brown

Jane Shelton

James Thomas

Belle Xu