The Department
of English, Chowgule College – Autonomous will organize its annual Shakespeare Festival – The
Bard by the Mandovi 2018, a one day school and higher secondary school
competition on Monday, the 10th of September, 2018 at the Chowgule college
campus. The competition is open to all schools and Higher Secondaries in Goa.
This year the theme is ‘Super Shakespeare’ and thus the event is tied with
another annual event – Cosfest Goa – an All Goa competition open to everyone (6
to 60) to cosplay their favourite fictional characters and win cash prizes
amounting to 20,000 /- rupees! This is the ninth edition of the Shakespeare
Festival, where over 200 students compete in nine events over the day and this
year one event will be tied up with Cosfest Goa, in its second iteration, the
only event of its kind in Goa!
Every
year school and higher secondary school children throng the Shakespeare
Festival to compete in events that challenge their wits and showcase their
talents. Last year 11 institutes participated in events like ‘Steal-A-Scene’,
where students enacted scenes from the Bard’s plays, and ‘Shakespearean
Soliloquy’ – where they performed soliloquies. Participants recited poems of
various poets in the event – ‘The Bard’ and were loquacious in ‘Friends,
Romans, Countrymen’. Artistic talent was flush in all the off-stage events
‘Mozaic’, ‘Bedtime Shakespeare’ and ‘Diorama Drama’. The freshest event had the
most ‘fresh’ response – ‘Meme Scheme’ where the students created Memes on
Shakespeare! At the end of the day the best took away the trophies, but all
participants were winners in their own right. Don Bosco Higher Secondary
School, Panjim, took home the Overall trophy, SharadaMandir School, Miramar,
won runners up and Our Lady of the Rosary High School, Dona Paula, won second
runners up. In the last edition of Cosfest Goa, there over 30 participants in
competitive and non-competitive categories. “The Shakespeare Festival Goa is
already a recognized brand,” says Asst. Prof Andrew Barreto, event in-charge,
“and students enjoy the creative and healthy competition. Costume play, though,
is relatively new to Goa. Through Cosfest Goa we want everyone to learn more
about their favourite characters in a fun interactive way. It’s a beautiful way
to engage with pop culture. So we decided to tie it up with the Shakespeare
festival to promote its availability to school students and their families as
well!” The festival is open to the public from 11 to 5. S
