Bard High School Early College

Epic teaches an Intro to Theatre course for all 140 freshmen at Bard High School Early College and an elective Intermediate Class for 10th graders. In addition, we will teach a Journeys program in two 10th grade Humanities classes and 150 students will attend our Off-Broadway productions.

Epic Artist Sarah K. Chalmers teaches the entire freshmen class over the course of the year in the Introduction to Theatre Class. Each quarter, the class culminates in a series of original theatrical compositions inspired by quotations from their Humanities classes. Each small theatre company is mentored by an Epic Artist.

Each semester, the Intermediate Theatre Class ("Theatre for Social Change") is taught by Epic Artist Vernice Miller.

In the Spring, Epic will collaborate with two Humanities classes with a play from our Journeys Series.

Funded by NYSCA, Bard College, the Department of Education and the Leon Lowenstein Foundation.

Prologue to Romeo and Juliet, Paraphrased
Two households both alike in dignity
Two families of the same social class
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene)
In Verona, our setting
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Turn a rivalry into fighting,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
And civilized people get bloody.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
These two rivals give birth to
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
A couple of lovers who kill themselves;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Their really bad actions
Doth with their death bury their parents'strife
And their death ends their parents' struggle
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
The scary stuff that happens to them
And the continuance of their parents' rage
And their parents being pissed
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,
Won't end until their death,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
This is our show.
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
If you listen,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend
What you don't get now, we'll try to explain.
- Nick Shatan Nov 06 BHSEC