Last year, I undertook one of the most unusual projects of my life. In a career as a television executive, writer, editor, and educator full of the unexpected, I became an Olney Theater teaching artist at A. Mario Loiederman Middle School in Montgomery County, which is dedicated to the performing arts.

Throughout the 2023/24 school year, I co-taught with an extraordinary up-and-coming actress and playwright, Amber Smithers, eighth graders in Ms. Robyn Paley’s first-period theater class. Twice a month, we ran classes focused on the novel-in-verse, Long Way Down, by the acclaimed young adult author Jason Reynolds; we culminated in May with student-written plays inspired by the novel performed by the students on the Olney Stage. Jason Reynolds attended the production and met with the students — a thrilling end. And I felt a special kind of loss, not only for the inspiring Ms. Paley, not only for her students and their energy, imagination, and talent but for my co-teacher. So when Amber shared that she would be in the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s Macbeth production for student audiences, I thought that I must see her perform.

I traveled to Baltimore for a 10 a.m. Friday production. I didn’t check my emails before getting on the road. When I arrived in Baltimore, I read her message — she would not be in that day’s show. COVID. She urged me to attend anyway.

Why go? I am no longer teaching, choosing instead to focus on my writing and editing projects. My middle school and high school years were decades ago. I attended very large, overcrowded schools in New Rochelle, New York, and we never went on a field trip much less to see a Shakespeare performance. Did I want to spend the morning with raucous, inattentive high school students?

Amber’s invite was a gift.

I will stop now and say that every middle school and high school in the DMV should be attending these productions. In the fall, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Theater Company, the leading classical theater company in Maryland, performs Macbeth, and in the spring, Romeo and Juliet. These student performances are open only to school groups and invited guests of the cast and crew.

The theater space itself is a marvel. The restored former bank space, just a few blocks from Camden Yards, is multitiered with red-velvet seating and feels as much like a postmodern rendition of Shakespeare’s Globe as any venue I have ever been in. Two schools, one Baltimore City school and one suburban Maryland school, were attending the performance today. I caught a student saying as they ambled in from the downtown city street and stared at the sparse stage, “This isn’t at all what I was expecting.”

The players soon gathered on that stage for live music, modern songs with a bent toward the madrigal. As the director of education, Troy Jennings, later pointed out to me, during Shakespearean times, popular songs of the day were always performed before the shows to warm up the crowds. “At every turn, our goal is to engage these students in Shakespeare.”

I sat in the second tier at the edge of the high school students, their teachers, and their chaperones. Around me, the students leaned forward in their seats and began to snap their fingers. I figured that they liked the music’s beat but waited until the play started. That would be trouble. As the witches would soon chant, “Double double toil and trouble/fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

The play, adapted for high school students, would be followed by a talkback. According to Jennings, 12,000 students attended the student performances in 2023. Schools as far as Delaware and Virginia have been in the audience. Tickets for Baltimore City Schools are free via a grant from the mayor’s office.

Now, Macbeth. The performance was stunning and fully engaging. Of course, I missed watching my former co-teacher perform. But somehow, Amber was with me, her witchy presence encouraging my close listening and observance of the actors and scene development, which is what she always did in our class.

The students never leaned back. They giggled and guffawed some when Macbeth, played with a passionate, skilled rigor by Joshua Williams, kissed the tempting and tempestuous Lady Macbeth (Lauren Erica Jackson). They winced as the fight scenes with swords, daggers, and shields ensued with authenticity and grit, and bloodied hands and costumes.

Directed by Katie Keddell, the versatile actors, most in multiple roles, appeared both on stage and in the tiers, surprising and delighting the students (and me), and taking full advantage of the theater. On the edge of their seats, the students cheered as Malcolm (Daniel Sakamoto) and MacDuff (Lloyd Ekpe) boldly played, and their armies stormed the woods outside Macbeth’s castle, and the murderous Macbeth — the last act’s soliloquy heart-bracingly recited — “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” — was vanquished.

No scrolling phones. No social media. These students were fully engaged.

Benny Pope, who has a commanding presence as Duncan, shared with me, “I love the matinees because they inspire me, and I hope there’s that one young person out there, who hasn’t had the opportunity to attend theater before, that a performance like this plants a seed…that it inspires them to think more widely about their possibilities.”

This morning’s performance of Macbeth ended with loads of questions for the actors, moderated by the skillful director of education. The students were then encouraged to come on stage to talk more, get autographs, and, yes, take selfies before climbing back on their waiting school buses at about noon.

The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s performance of Macbeth was an inspiring, engaging, and joyful field trip — especially for this writer.

Running Time: One hour and 20 minutes, no intermission.

Macbeth plays through November 13, 2024 — and Romeo and Juliet plays from March 10 to April 28, 2025 — at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, 7 South Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD. Admission ($20–$26) is limited to schools for student matinee performances at 10 a.m. Baltimore City public school students are free via a grant from the Mayor’s Office.

The cast and creative credits are here (scroll down).

Created by Summer 2024 Interns Naima Gordon and Teagan McCabe