Editor's note: The following is a press release.

CM’s seventh- and eighth-graders battled with foils, rapiers and Elizabethan language last Wednesday night in a spring performance of Shakespeare’s classics.

The play, directed by local theater guru Ross MacDonald, brought life to Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies, with talented students playing many roles in a selection of more than 15 famous scenes. The students acted out scenes from "Romeo and Juliet," "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar," "Richard III" and others.

The students also performed the play on Thursday morning for the entire school.

"It has been a real joy," MacDonald said of the production. "[These students] embody the fact that Shakespeare is not an academic task, but it needs to be a living, breathing creation...when else are they going to realize that it's fun to perform Shakespeare?"

The cast included the following seventh and eighth grade students:

Michael Calderone - Medway

Francis Cosolito – Medfield

David Kenny – Dorchester

Erik Lyons – West Roxbury 

Paul Marino – North Easton

Joseph McCauley – Watertown

Matthew McGurn – West Roxbury

John Monbouquette – West Roxbury

William Moriarty – Ashland

Joshua Mullins – Jamaica Plain

Kamal Pearson – Hyde Park

Connor Sullivan – Brighton