WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |New teacher brings Shakespeare to Hillsboro High

New teacher brings Shakespeare to Hillsboro High

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- A new teacher at Hillsboro High School is bringing Shakespeare back into his students' lives.

In his first year at the school, Brad Brown and his theater students are taking on Shakespeare's romantic comedy, Twelfth Night.

The play is about a young woman named Viola, who is lost at sea and fears her twin brother, Sebastian, has perished. To find some answers, she disguises herself as a young man in order to be a servant to a duke. She falls in love with him, but he is in love with another woman, who in turn falls in love with Viola, thinking she's a young man. Then Sebastian arrives to the kingdom, confusing everyone.

With such a complicated storyline, Brown, the director, is glad to see his students "embrace the challenges of Shakespeare and of Shakespeare's text and really just have a lot of fun with these characters."

He adds, "I didn't know how the students would take to performing Shakespeare. There hasn't been a Shakespeare play here at the, uh, at Hillsboro in a little while."

The school's first performance of the Twelfth Night was Thursday night, and Brown was amazed at the feedback he received after the show.

He says one student walked up to him and expressed interest in auditioning for the next play.

"He loved it, and he'd never, he's never done any theater before, and so, hearing things like that from students that traditionally don't go to plays or haven't been exposed to Shakespeare, um, that's really great," Brown said.

"I'm extremely proud of just the energy and the hard work that they put into this production," he added.

Twelfth Night runs through the weekend at the school's auditorium. Show times are 7 p.m. Friday through Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students.

Hillsboro High School is located at 3812 Hillsboro Road in the Green Hills area.