With support from the California Arts Council, Silicon Valley Shakespeare will create the program “Shakespeare Is Us,” bringing culturally, financially, and geographically accessible afterschool theatre residency programs and student matinees to middle- and elementary-schoolers at Title I schools. Through the original curriculum “Shakespeare Through Your Eyes,” this identity-centered approach invites students to explore and reinterpret Shakespeare’s stories through their own cultures, languages, and lived experiences. Using movement, ensemble-building, and personal storytelling, students build confidence, communication skills, and a sense of creative ownership, connecting them to and giving agency over a 400-year-old artistic legacy and language shared across the globe. The program culminates in student matinees and public performances of an adapted Shakespeare play, reimagined entirely through their own voices.