To wear a hat, or to not wear a hat.

That was the question for some Denver Public Schools students, teachers, parents and volunteers intent on staying warm and dry while congregating in downtown Denver’s Skyline Park Friday morning for the 41st Annual DPS Shakespeare Festival.

In what would have been the shadow of office buildings downtown — had there been enough sunlight to cast one — children of all ages filtered out of yellow school buses and onto the park green, dressed in their best medieval flair and excited for the day ahead.

Some students practiced dueling with plastic swords; others ran across the park to greet friends from different schools. Teachers and parents, many carrying themed banners with the school or class name on them, conducted headcounts, gave instructions and took photos of everyone in their costumes.

Skyline Park served as the starting point for one of Denver Public Schools’ most heralded traditions: the Shakespeare Festival, a full day of pageantry, parading and performance. Centered around the works of the infamous English playwright, Friday’s festival marked the continuation of an annual tradition that has brought together thousands of DPS students under the banner of William Shakespeare for 41 years.

“A group of teachers started the festival on the 16th Street Mall, with students bused in to perform Shakespeare,” said Beau Augustin, a curriculum specialist with Denver Public Schools and one of the coordinators for the festival. “It’s grown and adjusted (over the years) … it’s a not to be missed event.”

Organizers said it’s the “oldest and largest student Shakespeare festival in the country.”

“Historically, the Shakespeare Festival provides a forum for students to perform sonnets and scenes from the works of Shakespeare, as well as demonstrate dance and vocal and instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time,” according to the program’s website.

After a few initial remarks, including from two students chosen as the year’s honorary William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, the crowd of 5,000 began to move. Aided by a police escort, they walked down 15th Street, before taking a right turn on Curtis Street and continuing into the Denver Center for Performing Arts Complex.

From then on, the day consisted of productions and pentameters. Both inside the complex and outside on the lawn, student groups of all ages drew crowds as many put on performances they had been rehearsing for months.

“We talk about memorization tips like reading right before bed and writing their lines out. It’s a lot of repetition,” said Janine Donelson, the drama and art teacher at Lincoln Elementary School. “At school, we don’t have that much time, sometimes we only have 40 minutes with them a week.”

Donelson added that she saw more buy-in from students this year, as the school happened to add Shakespeare to the reading curriculum at the same time students were preparing for the festival in their drama elective, giving them a better opportunity to reinforce their learning and better immerse themselves in the material.

“For me, it’s still hard to speak like they did,” said one Lincoln Elementary student who performed a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “But it wasn’t that hard to memorize everything.”

Some teachers at the festival on Friday noted how their students gained a better stage presence and confidence in themselves as they continued to prepare for the event. Others said that even their students who speak fluent English struggle with learning their lines, as the language is so different that it feels almost foreign.

“One of the coolest drivers of the festival is that challenge of language,” Augustin said. “This is an interesting moment in the hallmark of theater being empathy for all of our students to experience a little bit of challenge with the spoken language.”

Not all the plays were in English, either. Holm Elementary —  a school with a large multi-language population — had a few groups specifically for Spanish-speaking students that learned the plays in their native language, said Lauren Miller, a fourth grade teacher at the school who was celebrating her 10th year bringing students to the festival.

“It’s magical,” Miller said. “Every year, this is so much fun.”

For some teachers, while they want their students to learn more about language, they want the biggest takeaway to be the camaraderie that comes with putting on these performances with their peers.

“I think its important for them,” said Sarah Flohr the coordinator for the event for Archuleta Elementary School. They’re getting to work with kids from other grade levels and just be a part of something bigger than themselves.”