Denver Public Schools will celebrate the 19th Annual Shakespeare Festival in lower downtown Denver on Friday, May 2. The festival is always one of the most colorful and interesting events of the school year.

The festival will kick off at 10 a.m. with The Rout, a parade that travels through the Galleria, up Curtis Street and concludes at the Sixteenth Street Mall. The Elizabethan Rout was a forerunner to the modern day parade.

Following the parade will be the opening ceremonies at 10:15 a.m. at the Olde Globe Theatre, north of the Tower.

Performances are scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m. and last until 3:45 p.m. This year students from more than 62 of Denver’s high, middle and elementary schools will present excerpts from the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare plus music and dance of the Renaissance period.

The performances will be on various stages set up at the festival. The locations of the stages are:

• The Olde Globe Theatre in Skyline Park just north of the Tower
• The Fortune Theatre in Independence Plaza, east of Arapahoe St.
• The Tower Theatre next to the D&F Tower
• The Rose Theatre across the Mall from Tower in Park Central
• The Blackfriar Theatre on the Stonehenge Rocks at 15th St. in Skyline Park I
• The Swan Theatre in Skyline Park III near 18th St.
• The Hope Theatre in North Skyline Park III on Arapahoe St past 17th St.
• The Curtain Theatre on the cubes near 17th St. in Skyline Park
• The Whitehall Theatre on the 16th Street Mall in front of the Tabor Center

At 1:30 p.m., the Shakespeare Challenge Bowl trivia contest will pit students from high, middle and elementary schools against celebrity contestants from businesses, the arts and the media. This contest will take place at the Tower Theatre, renamed the Rocky Mountain News Alan Dumas Theatre in memory of the long time supporter and theatre critic.

Throughout the day, 99 GuildMasters from media and arts groups will hand out 900 award ribbons in a spontaneous fashion to any student who, for them, represents the spirit of Shakespeare and the festival.

The Denver Public Schools Shakespeare Festival is one of the largest festivals in the country. The festival was honored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Diffusion Network and the prestigious Folger Library in Washington, D. C. when it was named a demonstration site for the teaching of Shakespeare for 1993-95.

In 1993, the Festival received an Arts in the Marketplace Award. In 1994, the festival and its director, J. Joe Craft, were presented with the Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

For additional information call 303-405-8278 or e-mail to joe_craft@dpsk12.org or visit the website at http://shakespeare.dpsk12.org.