A drama-filled freshman English class caught Kelsie Heier by surprise.
"I walked in and I was like woah, who are all these people," Heier said.
American Shakespeare Center actress Denice Mahler stood in room 309, eager to help Heier's class better understand how Shakespeare has remained relevant today.
"He wrote about humans," Mahler said. "That's a human, that's a human and that's a human. It is a story that can happen to anybody."
Members of the troop say that it's important for the students to get out of their desks and interact with Shakespeare's plays, "Shakespeare never, ever, ever meant for his plays to be read," Mahler said. "He meant for them to be performed.
It was something the students said they noticed as they actively ran through the familiar lines with Mahler.
"You get to work with other people," Heier said. "You get to show emotion. You feel like you are in the play."
"It's a whole different feeling when you act it out," classmate Logan Manivong said. "It's actually a lot more fun."
The teachers hope the students will be able to learn valuable lessons from the classic plays.
"History repeats itself, whether it's politics or religion or war or power or money, these are the issues that are still relevant today," teacher Dawn Sheforgen said. "If they can read or enjoy it maybe they'll have a better understanding of those power struggles of that is going on in the modern world."
