One student from Acadiana will stand on the stage at Lincoln Center.
Acadiana’s first regional of the ESU National Shakespeare Competition: learn a monologue and a sonnet, win your school, win the region, and take the stage in New York on April 26, 2027.
Six Acadiana schools are already in.
Regional finals Saturday, January 9, 2027, 9:00 AM, Acadiana Center for the Arts, Lafayette.
$100 per school, invoiced by the ESU. Free for students.
Three stages, one road to New York.
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Your school round
This fall, on your campus, run however fits your students: a class, a club, an evening. Each student performs a monologue; your school names one champion by December 18. We’ll help you run your first one.
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The Acadiana regional
School champions meet at the Acadiana Center for the Arts on Saturday, January 9, 2027 at 9:00 AM: monologue and sonnet, performed for an audience and a panel of working artists and scholars. One student is named Acadiana’s representative.
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Lincoln Center
Our champion joins finalists from across the country for a weekend in New York and the national finals, live on stage, April 26, 2027. The ESU covers finalists’ venue, meals, and activities, with partial travel support.
Teachers, this is built to be easy.
You don’t need a theatre program. You need one classroom, a handful of students, and the packet the ESU sends when you register: the handbook and the approved monologue and sonnet packets. There’s a short video (opens in a new tab) that walks through the whole program, and I’ll come to your campus, help you run your school round, or answer anything at all. Whatever makes this easiest for you and your students.
What registering takes
- The ESU school form (opens in a new tab) — five minutes, by December 1. Where it asks for your branch, choose E‑Branch.
- The ESU invoices your school $100. That’s the whole cost; students pay nothing.
- The packet arrives; you pick your dates. We’re a phone call away the whole season.
Judges and mentors: the students need to be seen.
Actors, directors, teachers, professors, poets: the panel is working artists and scholars from this region, and mentors work with student champions between their school win and the regional. A judge gives one day. A mentor gives what they can. Both change what a sixteen-year-old believes is possible.
or write us: josiah@acadianashakespearefestival.org
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Hamlet · Act I, Scene 3
And this is only Act One.
The festival grows: a public showcase weekend with the regional finals, and in time, Shakespeare produced on an Acadiana stage every year.
Follow along, bring your school, or come sit in the audience when the verse starts. This is your festival — it just needed someone to print the bill.