39th Annual Shakespeare Competition

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ESU Invites all Kansas City Area High Schools to enter our 39th annual Shakespeare Competition

2023 marks the 39th year for The English-Speaking Union's Shakespeare Competition in Kansas City. Registration is underway for all Kansas City Metro High Schools and Home School Programs to enter the Shakespeare Competition. The deadline to register your school is January 27, 2023.

The Competition helps students develop speaking and critical-thinking skills while they explore the beauty of the language and the timeless themes in Shakespeare's works. By preparing a monologue and sonnet for public presentation, students bring Shakespeare to life in their own way and learn to express his works with understanding, clarity, and feeling. Approximately 2,500 teachers and 20,000 students in nearly 60 ESU branches participate each year.

High school students from the KC metro area (Grades 9-12) will be competing for First Place at the Kansas City Finals with the winner advancing to the National Finals in New York City in April 2023. Students perform and recite Shakespeare monologues and sonnets in three qualifying stages: school, branch, and National levels. 

If you are a Theatre, English, Forensics teacher, or administer a home school program, we encourage you to enter to give your students an opportunity to participate in this exciting competition. If you are an interested high school student, please alert your teachers to this valuable program. 

The sponsoring teacher needs to register your school's competition with the ESU. The deadline to submit the School Participation Form is January 27, 2023. The deadline to hold your school competition and report your school's winner to the ESU is February 10, 2023.

All materials including the online school participation form, teacher and student handbooks, and packets of monologues and sonnets are located here: www.shakespearecompetition.org 

Contact Kansas City Branch Competition Coordinator Dan Bukovac for questions: dan.bukovac@gmail.com

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