Sitting together, gazing at their laptops in the Beit Midrash on Thursday, Sept. 15, middle school students engaged in what could only be a theater teacher’s dream: they were reading Shakespeare, excitedly consuming their roles while singing show tunes from the Broadway hit “Hamilton.”

The middle school Shakespeare Club is a new version of an established program. It is run by social studies teacher Deborah Feigenson who ran the club for fifth and sixth-graders in the Lower School for 12 years. The 2016-2017 school year posed a unique challenge for the club because its student body and director moved to the Upper School, but according to Feigenson, in some form, the club was always going to come with her.

“When I came up and [the school] said I’m going to be a sixth grade teacher but at the Upper School, the first thing I said was ‘as long as I still get to do Shakespeare,’” Feigenson said.

One of the reasons that the club had such a strong case to continue was its stability and popularity. There are 26 middle-schoolers in this year’s club. Since the club has more members than one play has roles, it will perform both “Julius Caesar” and “Twelfth Night.”

Feigenson allowed students to choose roles based on seniority, with older students deciding before younger ones. Students who had been in the club before had the first choices within their grades.

Seventh-grader Rochelle Berman chose to play Cassius, who convinces Brutus to kill Caesar in “Julius Caesar.” Berman, a newcomer to both CESJDS and the Shakespeare Club, said that she was excited because she loves singing, dancing and acting and did not want to wait for the spring middle school musical.

“Last year, we read Shakespeare in school, and so it’s kind of cool seeing it come to life on the stage rather than just reading it out of a book,” Berman said, adding that she just studied “Julius Caesar.”

Seventh-grader Zach Arking, who was in the Shakespeare Club last year, will play Brutus. Arking originally joined the club because he enjoys being in plays. He continued this year after a positive experience in last year’s performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“I like it and it’s fun,” Arking said. “You get to learn kind of like a different language because it’s not the language you would use today, and it’s fun to act.”

After picking roles, Berman, Arking and the other students spread throughout the room and practiced their respective characters’ lines in the play. The students read lines from the full version online, analyzing them to understand their character.

Meanwhile, with help from her mother, Feigenson wrote the script based on the full plays but accommodated actor requests and the necessary constraints of a middle school club.

One way Feigenson will put a new spin on Shakespeare is with the costumes and props. In “Julius Caesar,” the actors will dress in Star Wars costumes that represent their characters and will use toy lightsabers instead of swords during fight scenes. As Cassius, Berman will be wearing a Darth Vader costume while her fellow actors dress as Stormtroopers and Princess Leia, among others.

Feigenson said that she hopes students experience the “magic” of being part of a Shakespeare production with other kids. Sophomore Danielle Kronstadt, who is serving as the student director, felt this emotion while she was a member of the Shakespeare Club in the Lower School. Four years after her Lower School club tenure, Kronstadt now helps Feigenson and the cast.

“Fifth grade was when I really learned to love Shakespeare,” Kronstadt said. “I guess I have an affinity towards him because I can understand him more clearly than a lot of people. I was kind of indifferent to [Shakespeare’s plays] until fifth grade, when I just started getting really excited about them. Ms. Feigenson really brought me into it and ever since then I read them all the time.”

While the middle school has the Shakespeare Club, high school students currently have no way to engage with Shakespeare’s plays aside from reading them in class. Feigenson, however, thinks there may be a new hope for these older students if they want to perform Shakespeare in the future. Feigenson aims to bring Shakespeare to the high school, either through a separate club or by bringing students to out-of-school Shakespeare competitions to read monologues and perform in front of judges.

“My thought is that if we have kids who have been doing Shakespeare and have been in plays six years in a row throughout the middle and Lower School, by the time they compete, they’re going to dominate,” Feigenson said.

The middle school Shakespeare Club will perform “Twelfth Night” and “Julius Caesar” at the Ring House on Nov. 10, the Upper School on Nov. 15 at the Landow House on Nov. 17.