Caption: PCS 9th grader, Audreys Rosario, portrays Hamlet in the scene depicting the slaying of Polonius.
“How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” cried Hamlet as he plunged his sword through the curtain hiding the meddlesome Polonius in Act 3, Scene 4 of the dark tale of the Prince of Denmark.
Hamlet was the play chosen for the 2014 enactment of Shakespeare in the City, a city-wide theatrical event begun in 2009 by the Lincoln School’s Middle School English teacher Martha Douglas-Osmundson. Upwards of 20 Providence school theater departments each perform a scene in sequence from an abbreviated Shakespearean play.
The newly-refurbished Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, a premier performance space in the city, was the venue for this year’s drama. The Paul Cuffee cast, under the direction of theater instructor and director, Tom Epstein, included Alex Lorenzo as the ill-fated Polonius; Heidi Silverio as Queen Gertrude; Audreys Rosario as Hamlet, the melancholy Dane; Anabel Castillo, Kiara Perez and Alvin Artigas in repertory as King Hamlet’s Ghost with Anicel Paulino, Katherin Hernandez, Beverly Perez, Africa Smith and Kenny Oladosu in the Ensemble.