ICC’s event celebrating Shakespeare starts with singing the playwright “Happy Birthday” last Wednesday

Two days ago, ICC held an event called the “Bard’s Birthday Bash” to celebrate the 461st birth and death date of William Shakespeare.

This event happened in two parts, the first taking place in the Academic Support Center, or ASC, from 9 a.m. to noon, which gave students the chance to create their own Elizabethan era style ruffle from paper, as well as participate in other activities.

“We [the Academic Support Center] had our greeters working on these [ruffles] for a while, creating the materials and putting some of them together. The ruffle collar is obviously very characteristic of the time,” Manny Carman, a professional tutor for the ASC, said. “We also had Bard Libs, so Mad Libs but Shakespeare themed. For a few of the more famous scenes from his plays, we got some coloring pages. We also dressed up the ASC with a little bit of decor or to be on theme. I had lots of costume stuff I brought in, so that people could dress up.”

“It has been really fun to embrace this thing. Shakespeare is kind of a hard sell sometimes, because people’s experiences with it are usually like, oh it’s very stuffy and hard to approach,” Carman added. “But once you actually start interacting with it, it is really fun and interesting and there are lots of cool ways that you can play around with it.”

The second part occurred from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., where after singing “Happy Birthday” to Shakespeare, students could enjoy cake while listening to performances of Shakespeare’s most famous scenes and sonnets.

The Academic Support Center organized the first part of the event, while the Humanities Department helped to organize the other part of the event, through their organization called “Between the Lines,” which creates events where students can participate in the literary and oral arts.