The Shakespeare Slam Team took first place April 27 in the finals of the Chicago Shakespeare Teen Slam, defeating six competing schools. In addition to this accomplishment, seniors Rowan Neville and Ellie Shea, Slam Team captains, were inducted into the Chicago Shakespeare Teen Slam Hall of Fame the same night.

Contributing to the Slam Team’s victory was its first-place finish in the “Dream Round,” in which they strategically combined an excerpt of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” with a 2011 boy band hit–a creative idea hatched by the students.

They built their interpretation around the concept of generational trauma, according to co-captain Neville, a fourth-year senior, who noted, “that’s a topic that pops up a lot in ‘Hamlet.’”

Shea floated the idea of connecting “Hamlet” to the song “Same Mistakes” by One Direction, which Neville described as a “psychic connection. It worked out.”

“I didn’t know this song before they started singing in the scene,” said English teacher James Bell, who directs the Oak Park and River Forest High School Slam Team.

“I think that particularly the adult judges wouldn’t have put those things together,” he said. “When they were performing at finals, the judges were just slackjawed. I mean, they were just in amazement of the ways in which this group would go in and out of Shakespeare into song, into Shakespeare again. It was like they were written together,” Bell added.

While Bell takes up the job of cleaning up the routines, the scenes themselves that the Slam Team competed with were completely written and crafted by Neville and Shea.

“Rowan and Ellie, who are captains, like, they wrote our dream round,” said Teddy Nielsen, a third-year junior Slam member. “They were the ones that incorporated scenes from the One Direction song into the scene and basically created this amazing scene.”

Bell provided an objective eye. “For me, it’s making sure that…the story that they want to tell is clear,” he said. “So a lot of times it’ll be just kind of like shifting blocking to make relationships clear–to make the relationships contribute to that larger story that they’re telling.”

OPRF’s Shakespeare Slam Team competed with fellow Chicago teen finalists at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater located at Navy Pier. The historic theater is a Regional Tony Award recipient that has been producing world-class theater since 1986. Chicago Shakespeare Theater has produced and premiered numerous original works across a range of theatrical forms including “Six” (2018), “The Notebook” (2022) and “The Tempest” (2016) which received the 2016 Joseph Jefferson Award.

For many members, the final competition was less significant because they won and more so because they got the opportunity to perform on such an acclaimed stage.

“It’s neat to be in a space that has balconies because, like, we don’t here at the high school, so it’s really interesting to play to, like, all sides of you and also up. It makes the piece feel so much more impactful than, like, doing it in the hallway upstairs, which is where we rehearse,” said Neville.

Nielsen described the experience as “exhilarating,” adding that he found meaning in “performing these words that have been done for hundreds of years, that people have spoken before and will continue to speak. It incorporated, like, just how universal this experience feels and how powerful it is to come together as a collective.”

The team of eight players collaborated closely on the project, even working through some last-minute personnel changes. Junior member Gayatri Gadhvi was busy in New York City at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts competing in the National Shakespeare Competition after her first-place win at regionals in March. Slam member Ainsley Bassett, a sophomore, stepped in to fill Gadhvi’s role.

“Ainsley and Gayatri are very different performers,” said Bell. “And Ainsley is only a sophomore. Her stepping into a role that Gayatri kind of shaped and then making it her own…and [keeping] the emotional intensity that the group expected, that was great to watch, that was really impressive. She certainly deserves recognition for that.”

“This year…everyone just really genuinely liked each other and liked working with each other,” said Neville. “So it didn’t get at all, like, clique-y, and I think that was huge in getting us as far as we did. Everyone was so willing to try things and very trusting of each other and willing to make choices, which is so essential in doing, like, weird versions of Shakespeare.”