If music be the food of love play on! says a celebrating Orsino in William Shakespeares "Twelfth Night."
Shakespeare Festival/LA has taken this famous line and created a unique after-school program for youth that combines job-training and art. Building upon its youth-in-arts education program, Will Power to Youth, SFLA has launched Play On! - a program focusing on music production, sound engineering, and poetry. Twenty-Five participants were selected from more than fifty applicants. Youth study Shakespeares "Hamlet", and songs to learn structure and rhythm, then they conduct comparisons between Shakespeare and contemporary artists such as The Beatles, U2, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, The Killers and Alicia Keys for song structure, melody, rhythm, and production. Participants select track team focuses for the 8-week program. Track teams include songwriting, writing, sound engineering, and thread team.