Ninth- and tenth-grade students from all over Warren County were treated to a performance of Julius Caesar by the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at Struthers Library Theatre on Wednesday.

The visit was part of the theater’s Arts in Education program.

After the show, most of the 700 students returned to their regularly-scheduled activities.

Those who wanted a closer look hung around.

Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Chase Kyler slaps Dylan Hardwick in the stage combat workshop presented by the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at Struthers Library Theatre.

About half of the 120 who stayed had some theater experience — many through the Struthers Library Theatre Academy. The others were newcomers.

“Our theater kids introduce the theater to the kids who haven’t been here before,” Theater Officer Manager Jenn Scalise said. “They’re so proud to be part of the place when there are collections of kids here. They belong here.”

All of them selected and participated in two workshops led by the performers — Gabe Moses, Taylor Congdon, Matt Smaldone, Maddy Rolon, Isaiah Stanley, Connor Johnson, Colleen Corcoran, Arrianna Daniels, Jhalil Younger, and stage manager Amanda Rose Johnson.

The workshops were: Interpreting Shakespeare, Choreography, Stage Combat, and Words before Blows: the Power of Rhetoric and Persuasion in Julius Caesar.

The students spent about an hour in each of two.

Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Arrianna Daniels of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival (left) reacts as Julius Caesar (Marissa VanGuilder), with support from Mark Antony (Winnie Wolf), tells the soothsayer (Jurney Mennetti) to ‘speak to the hand’ during a choreography workshop at Struthers Library Theatre.

The show was a cultural experience and the workshops were learning experiences.

But there was more.

“A lot of these kids have not been in a theater post-COVID,” Executive Director Karen Austin said.

“It really is a first exposure for a lot of the kids in the county to live performance as well as our theater,” Marketing and Education Manager Eric Morelli said.

Some will respond to the experience the way Austin did and be part of the future of the theater.

“I remember my first theater experience,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘I need to get some more of that.'”

Getting a chance to portray an animal on-stage, read — and understand — lines in Old English, realistically knock a fellow actor down without any physical contact, or argue the merits of one show versus another with the rhetoric group, could lead to a lifetime of appreciation.

“It’s good for the future thespians,” Austin said. “It’s good for the patrons. It’s good for the future executive director.”

“It’s a great thing,” she said.

The Festival is sharing that kind of message far and wide. At the interpretation station, Colleen Corcoran explained that the Festival will have soon delivered the program to over 14,000 students statewide.

The theater has ongoing relationships with both the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and the Virginia Repertory Theater – targeting kids in kindergarten through sixth grades, Austin said. The in-person events have taken some time off, but both groups returned this year.

Youth theater is picking up locally.

The SLT Academy will perform Legally Blonde Junior on June 3. “This show has brought in so many new kids,” Scalise said. “It’s exciting to see.”

Austin and Morelli are working with the younger performers. Directors Logan Johnson and Abigail Wilson — long-time SLT Academy veterans — will lead the group and are working with the older students.