The English-Speaking Union
Boston Branch
411 Waverly Oaks Rd., Suite 331B
Waltham, MA 02452
(781) 647-7029
fax: (781) 647-7222
Contact Us
To see what's planned this Fall be sure to visit the Calendar of Events. |
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Summer 2009
CONGRATULATIONS
to the Winners of the
2009 SHAKESPEARE COMPETITION FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS:
Talene Monahon, Winner
Christopher Thomas, Runner-up
Finalists:
Keith Nolen
Claire Wright
Mildred Aroko
Brian Cowe
Margaret Dunn
Lauren Alexander
Taylor Lopez
Talene Monahon
Christopher Thomas
Alex Marz
CONGRATULATIONS TO TALENE MONAHON
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL ESU SHAKESPEARE COMPETITION!
CONGRATULATIONS
to the Winners of the first annual
ESU MIDDLE SCHOOL PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION
Osaremen Okolo, Winner
Marcus Jones, Runner-up
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Welcome to the Boston Branch of The English-Speaking Union. We are a membership organization sponsoring educational programs for students and teachers, as well as lectures, social events, and travel for our members.
For students, we offer the annual Shakespeare Competition for High School Students, in which competitors perform a twenty-line monologue from one of Shakespeare’s plays, and recite a sonnet. All high schools – public, private, parochial, or charter schools -- in Boston and the metropolitan area are eligible. Winners of school-based competitions go on to the semi-finals, held this year on Saturday, January 31, 2009 at the Museum of our National Heritage in Lexington from 10 AM to 4PM. Ten finalists went on to the finals, held on Sunday, February 8, 2009, at the Tufte Performance Center at Emerson College, from 1-4PM. The Boston winner represented the Boston ESU at the ESU’s National Shakespeare Competition at New York’s Lincoln Center in April, and she took First Place at the Competition, winning over 60 branch winners from around the country. For more information about the Shakespeare Competition, go to our Calendar of Events page.
This year the Boston ESU offered a new program for middle school students, The ESU Middle School Public Speaking Competition, featuring famous speeches in American and World History. Middle school students choose, excerpted, introduced and declaimed a speech for two minutes in school-based contests. School winners competed on Saturday, March 28th at The Newman School in Boston. For more information, please go to the "Who We Are" page.
For teachers in the greater Boston area, we offered a workshop on Teaching Shakespeare Interactively in June, 2005, presented by Michael LoMonico, a well-known Shakespeare specialist. We repeated this one-day workshop on Saturday, May 31, 2008, with a Folger Library-trained presenter.
Members of the ESU’s Boston Branch enjoy a stimulating mix of activities. Last season,in March, a beautifully preserved Back Bay townhouse was the setting for a reception and book talk, "Afternoons with Emily," about a young girl's relationship with Emily Dickinson. In April, former MP and Thatcher minister Patrick Nicholls spoke after dinner at the Harvard Club on the US, the UK, and the EU. Our annual Garden Party and Silent Auction took place on June 1st, and on June 29th, we ended the season with a theater outing to see the one-man show based on the life of Tip O'Neill, "According to TIP."
Events for the fall included a concert of the music of celebrated British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, followed by a reception, on October 7th, and a luncheon talk entitled, "Inventing Iran, Inventing Iraq: a History of the British and Americans in the Middle East," on November 13th. Please check the Calendar of Events section for a list of upcoming events and recent events.
ESU Boston Branch members also have the opportunity to travel. In June,2005, members of the Boston Branch attended the launch of the Czech Republic ESU in Prague, which featured five days of tours and special events, as well as a weekend tour of Southern Bohemia. The 2005 National Conference of the ESU took place in San Diego, and the 2006 National ESU Conference was held in Nashville. At the end of October, 2006, ESU Chile was launched in Santiago. The 2007 National ESU Conference was held from October 31st to November 4th in Richmond, VA to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. It featured a lecture and visit to Jamestown, a Churchill symposium, a Shakespeare festival and talk by the Chinese ambassador to the UN. In September 2008, an international ESU conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland. In November 2009 a National ESU conference will be held in New Orleans.
Whether at home in Boston, at ESU branches around the U.S., or at ESU branches abroad, ESU members participate in activities designed to further our mission of Creating Global Understanding Through English.
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