JAFFREY — For the past 20 years Jaffrey Center's historic Meetinghouse has been home to the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District Annual Shakespeare Festival in the spring.

Fresh from the stage, 11-year-old Levy Duncan says he understands Shakespeare's Macbeth. There is a lot of “killings” in the play like the video games he likes to play, he said.

Levy played Macbeth in the Jaffrey Grade School fifth grade's condensed production of the Scottish play for the festival on Friday.

Relating to the themes of ambition, fate, deception and treachery in the Macbeth was not the challenge for the fifth graders, said one of their teachers Matt Harris; it was the language of Shakespeare.

“The joys are just to see the kids really come out of their shells,” Harris said.

Though, he didn't show it on stage, Levy said learning some of his lines didn't come easy, “I did have trouble with the ones that started, 'What are thou art.”

Lady Macbeth, played by 11-year-old Tessa Blood, said her part was challenging emotionally, “I had to act like I was sad because I had driven him crazy cause I made him kill people.”

The Jaffrey Rindge Cooperative School District festival is open to all grades from kindergarten to high school.

“It's all about the teacher. If the teacher wants to take the time to do it, it happens,” said festival founder Marjorie Margolis.

Margolis taught English at Conant High School for 20 years before retiring last year. She started the festival in 1993 and ran it for the first 15.

Homeschooling mom Lisa Wiley took up her festival board chairmanship five years ago, but Margolis is still involved.

“I just think it's the greatest thing in the world. It certainly made my world,” Margolis said.

As an English teacher, Margolis said she already believed in the power of Shakespeare when it came to teaching literacy and language. “I came to (Shakespeare) because it's a great teaching method.”

Over the years, the festival has had a huge impact on Jaffrey and Rindge students at a time when federal education guidelines for increased non-fiction reading have slowly pushed “the classics” out of high school, Margolis said. “The classics are going cause they take a long time.”

It would take Margolis three to five week to teach one Shakespeare play, she said. But in that one play students are learning so much, “Its poetry. It's prose. It's cadence,” she said. “In my opinion, you can teach all of language arts in one Shakespeare play.”

The festival demonstrates, in the best way, how important working with words and literature is to literacy, she said. “You're really working with what language is and nuance.”

Though, this was their 20th festival, Margolis said they are planning a 20th anniversary celebration at next year's festival.