The 2024 ESU National Shakespeare Competition Finals will be held on Monday, April 15 at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater in Lincoln Center! 
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PrintReflection from TLab Scholar Deidre Donovan
National News
In 1995, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the very first time. It was late July, and I was participating in the Roehampton Institute International Summer School, in association with the Shakespeare Institute and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. I was the lucky teacher who won the Treadwell Scholarship that year from the English-Speaking Union (New York Branch), which meant that I had all my expenses paid for my Stratford trip, including tuition, theater trips, meals, and more. It was a dream come true. I stayed at a bed-and-breakfast charmingly named "All's Well that End's Well" and attended lectures at the King Edward VI School on Church Street (a.k.a. as "Shakespeare's School"). Professor Stanley Wells (he would receive his knighthood in 2016) gave the opening lecture to our group. Indeed, I still can remember the hush in the classroom as he spoke about Shakespeare like an old friend and gave us a preview of our agenda. What was in store sounded amazing—and it proved to be a life-changing experience for me. When I returned to teaching that fall in my inner-city classroom in Brooklyn, I had much to share with my students. And as the school year progressed, I could see that they not only were engaged in each Shakespeare play I introduced, they were hungry for more.
