The ESU National Shakespeare Competition is a performance-based education program. High school students develop analytical and communication skills by performing Shakespeare at the school, community, and national levels. Since 1983 more than 360,000 students have brought the timeless works of Shakespeare to life. 2024 marks the 40th year the ESU Denver Branch has participated in the National Shakespeare Competition. 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. Some 2,500 teachers and 20,000 students in nearly 60 ESU branches participate each year.
High school students from the Denver area (Grades 9-12) will compete for First Place at the Denver Finals with the winner advancing to the National Finals in New York City in April 2025. Students perform and recite Shakespeare monologues and sonnets in three qualifying stages: school, branch, and National levels.
If you are a Theatre, English or 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 2025 ESU National Shakespeare Competition is underway in schools across the country. Following are upcoming deadlines for this year’s competition:
- School Winner Deadline – January 30, 2025
- School Winner Workshop – February 1, 2025, 4:30 pm
- Branch Competition – February 8, 2025, 5:00 pm
- Branch Winner Packets to ESU Deadline – March 17, 2025
The School Winner Workshop and Branch Competition will be held in partnership with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts at the Robert & Judi Newman Center for Theatre Education, 1101 13th Street in Denver. The public is invited to attend the Competition – please check in at the front desk upon entry and proceed to the Randy Weeks Conservatory Theatre on the third floor. Refreshments will be provided.
The competition finals will be held at Lincoln Center in NYC in late April 2025 (Date TBA)
2025 Prizes:
- 1st place: British American Drama Academy Mid-Summer Conservatory Program at Oxford, UK
- 2nd place: American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp in Staunton, VA
- 3rd place: $1000