Students at Longmont's Eagle Crest Elementary recently watched an abridged performance of "Taming of the Shrew," then talked about the characters' bad behavior.
Role playing as friends of a modern day Petruchio, fifth-graders strategized how to be "upstanders," stopping his plan to starve the shrewish Kate by hacking into the school's lunch system.
Their ideas included telling him it was a bad idea or alerting a teacher or principal.
"I feel like all the people in the audience are going to stop bullying now when they see it," said fifth-grader Quinn Abram.
The performance was part of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's all-female, bilingual tour. The six-week anti-bullying tour, created in conjunction with CU's Center for the Prevention and Study of Violence, is visiting more than 30 schools around the state over the next few weeks.
Since 2011, the project has mounted abridged productions of "Twelfth Night," "Much Ado About Nothing," "The Tempest" and "The Taming of the Shrew" for more than 72,000 Colorado students. Next up in the spring will be performances of "The Comedy of Errors" and "Julius Caesar."
Their version of "The Taming of the Shrew" was set in modern times, working current music and cell phones in with Shakespeare's dialogue. One of the characters also speaks Spanish to increase the play's accessibility to second-language students.
Colorado Shakespeare Festival spokeswoman Amanda Giguere said the goal is a more modern play that disrupts student expectations and lets them connect to the story in a new way.
After the performance, the three actors — Mehry Eslaminia, Satya Chavez and Eva Balistrieri — led workshops with the students. Bullying, the actors said, requires a power imbalance, an intention to be mean and meanness that happens repeatedly.
They also encouraged students to create a positive school climate and be "upstanders" instead of bystanders, noting that, more than half the time, bullies will stop if a bystander tells them to knock it off.
Fifth-grader Taylor Even agreed that it's important to intervene.
"They would become a bully, too, because they wouldn't help," she said.
Classmates said some of the behavior in the play made them uncomfortable, including the meanness between Kate and her sister, Bianca.
"I liked how they all became friends at the end," fifth-grader Avery Chisholm said.
The actors ended the workshop by talking about what to do if you didn't feel safe standing up to a bully, suggesting Safe To Tell. Safe to Tell allows students to anonymously report bullying, threats or unsafe situations through a phone call or an app.
"I just encourage you to be brave and do the right thing," Eslaminia said.