EUSA co-presidents Maya Roumie and Khloe Rowse (centre) and University of Windsor students who joined a student-planned trip to Stratford, Ont. (Photo courtesy of Maya Roumie/ University of Windsor).
The English Undergraduate Student Association (EUSA) executive team set out three goals for the past term.
They included: launch this year’s zine Generation: Liminality at Biblioasis Bookshop, host two events each month and plan an overnight trip to Stratford to see a Shakespearean play.
“We did not know if the Stratford trip was going to be possible at all,” said EUSA co-president Maya Roumie. “We’re of the generation that experienced the COVID pandemic in high school, and we didn’t really get school trips the way other people did.”
Fellow co-president Khloe Rowse said the idea had been a “pipe dream” since she and Roumie began studying English and Creative Writing at UWindsor.
“Just talking like ‘how cool would it be to actually see Shakespeare on a stage instead of just talking about it in a classroom?’” Rowse said.
The EUSA wanted to offer more than a day trip, so 30 students — studying everything from English and drama to psychology, computer science and biomed — climbed aboard a bus for an overnight trip.
At Stratford’s Festival Theatre, the group attended A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“When you’re reading a Shakespeare comedy sometimes the comedy gets lost, but everyone who’s experienced a live show insists that it’s truly very funny when you see it on the stage. You don’t get the full experience on the page, and it completely changes when you watch it,” said Rowse. “The whole thing was great — very lively. I’d never seen it that way.”
“When we read the play before going to see it, we weren’t really laughing, but as we were watching, we’d remember reading a certain line and not knowing it was a joke. Seeing it performed really brought it to life,” Roumie added.
“They had a diverse cast, which I think added to some of the themes. For instance, the character of Lysander was played by a Black man, which was an interesting layer to this forbidden-love trope. The performances added new depth to such an old story,” Roumie said.
Following the play, the group attended a Q&A with the cast, including University of Windsor alumni Ijeoma Emesowum and Laura Condlln, who portray Hippolyta and First Fairy, respectively. The two spoke about their craft and performing at Stratford.
“Performing at Stratford is huge for anyone in Canada, and hearing about these people from our university being successful in a field that is difficult to succeed in was really inspiring,” Rowse said.
“We both want to be writers,” Roumie added. “So as people looking to pursue an unconventional career, it was really great to hear from people who did it and are surviving and thriving.”
“Any of the locals you would interact with would ask, ‘So what play did you see today?’ That’s their second question every single time,” said Roumie. “You can just tell they’re run on this, and it’s beautiful.”
They wandered through the Shakespearean Gardens, tasted their way along the Chocolate Trail and checked out local shops.
“We had a few things on the schedule but really wanted to give people the freedom to explore. We all went to a lot of small businesses, like coffee shops and Fanfare Books, which was beautiful. I think every person ended up there,” Rowse said.
In their last year as co-presidents, Rowse and Roumie hope to hold more events like this, emphasizing that the EUSA is more than an English group that discusses books.
“We want to continue engaging as many people as we can, including English majors and beyond,” said Roumie. “The EUSA is really a place where we get to interact with literature on a level that’s a bit more alive. We do workshops, we like to watch movies and have fun with literature and stories at the basis of that.”