Joe Craft and Denver Public Schools

Joe Craft, a retired teacher from Denver and director of that city’s Shakespeare Festival, shares with the Denver Public Schools the 2009 Shakespeare Steward Award.

Craft was the driving force behind the Shakespeare Festival, recruiting Denver Public School teachers in 1984 to train students for performances. “Some said it would never work because no kid is ever going to want to learn Shakespeare,” Craft said. That year, some 400 young thespians took to the stage.

Today, he reports, the number of participants is approaching 4,000, with an audience of another 2,000 parents, friends, and passersby.