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Center For Actor Training

The very heart of Shakespeare & Company is its professional actor training. The aesthetic of the Company was created within the training devised by Tina Packer and the Master Teachers, and it is through these programs that the aesthetic is continually investigated, redefined, and reinvigorated.


Through the Center for Actor Training, Shakespeare & Company’s performance artists, education artists, and artist-managers develop a common artistic vocabulary and coherent approach to performing Shakespeare that provides a solid foundation for their work. Actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world come to work with the Company’s faculty to train not only their voices and their bodies with a daily regimen of demanding classes, but also to delve deeply into their own imaginations, intellects, and emotional lives.

Shakespeare & Company’s curriculum is internationally recognized as a deeply effective training experience for actors who aspire to bring their talent, intuition, and spirit to a higher level.

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The Dennis Krausnick Fellowship Fund (DKFF) provides financial assistance for artists of color to participate in our professional training programs.

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Actor Training Programs

2023 Summer Shakespeare Intensive

Modeled after our internationally acclaimed Month-long Intensive, the Summer Shakespeare Intensive (formerly the Summer Training Institute) provides young actors the opportunity to immerse themselves in Shakespeare six days a week for four weeks during our summer performance season. The Summer Shakespeare Intensive is geared towards undergraduate theater students, recent graduates, and early career acting professionals, but it is open to open to a wide-ranging audience of theatre performers and practitioners.

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2023 Month-long Intensive

Create a new relationship with Shakespeare’s text, with yourself as an actor, and with your place in the world of theatre.

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Weekend Intensive

Designed for professional actors and theater students who seek an introduction to Shakespeare & Company's training methods as well as alumni who wish to refresh and reconnect with the work, the Weekend Intensive integrates voice, movement, and monologue work. Participants explore ways to unlock the emotional and intellectual content inherent in Shakespeare's language, yielding a direct relationship between actor and text. Rigorous attention is paid to identifying and offering skills specific to the needs of the participants throughout the course of the weekend.

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In-Person Specialized Workshops

The Center for Actor Training typically offers a variety of specialized workshops throughout the year exploring a full range of disciplines including rhetoric, wit, clown, fight, voice, movement, public speaking, and more. Go to the ONLINE CLASSES AND WORKSHOPS page (click above) for details on our online programming. PLEASE NOTE: For all in-person workshops, all participants and workshop staff are required to have completed a COVID-19 vaccine regimen (including a booster shot) and will be tested on-site for COVID-19.

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Online Classes and Workshops

The Center for Actor Training now offers a variety of workshops and classes online, providing the opportunity for theater professionals around the world to study with our distinguished faculty.

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Meet the Faculty

Rebecca Goodheart

Rebecca Goodheart

Rebecca Goodheart has been a director, actor, and teacher specializing in Shakespeare and Voice for over 25 years. She is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher who has directed over 30 professional and 50 educational productions. Currently serving as the Producing Director of Elm Shakespeare Company in New Haven, CT, she has worked with a dozen Shakespeare theaters around the world, and is a proud lifetime member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association. Other leadership positions have included Director of Training at San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Producing Artistic Director for Maryland Shakespeare Festival (an equity theater she founded in 1999), Artistic Director of the Metawhateverphor Theater in NYC, and Director of Education for Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. She is a classical text and voice teacher at Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts and adjunct faculty at Southern Connecticut State University. She holds a BFA from NYU/Stella Adler Conservatory, a Master of Letters in Shakespeare & Renaissance Literature, and an MFA in Directing (both from the American Shakespeare Center). She has presented her research into Shakespeare’s dramatic use of rhetoric at numerous national conferences, and theatrical workshops across the country, as well as having her scholarship published in the Wooden O Journal and Shakespeare Criticism, online.

More about the S&Co. Faculty

From the Alumni

Halima Henderson

Halima Henderson

I’ve kept busy over the past year, and I have to say that weekend intensive has proven to be very effective! Everyone always asks about it when they see it on my resume and I love waxing poetically about it! Not only that, friendships that I made during my weekend have been long-lasting, I love running into folks at auditions moreI’ve kept busy over the past year, and I have to say that weekend intensive has proven to be very effective! Everyone always asks about it when they see it on my resume and I love waxing poetically about it! Not only that, friendships that I made during my weekend have been long-lasting, I love running into folks at auditions and have coffee with folks in the city and one friend even helped to book me in my first fully compensated theater job! Those three days were successful in so many ways I hadn’t even planned on!

Lulu Fogarty

Lulu Fogarty

My experience at the 2007 Summer Training Institute was absolutely priceless….I learned to bring a sense of play to everything I do. Play might be the most important tool for an actor but it’s surprising how quickly we forget to play because we try to be ‘right.’ There is no such thing as ‘right.’ To me, this is what the moreMy experience at the 2007 Summer Training Institute was absolutely priceless….I learned to bring a sense of play to everything I do. Play might be the most important tool for an actor but it’s surprising how quickly we forget to play because we try to be ‘right.’ There is no such thing as ‘right.’ To me, this is what the training at STI is all about. These lessons??"play, trust, and be ‘wrong’??"are the most important tools an actor can ever have….Words cannot express how lucky I feel to have gotten the opportunity to train at S&Co and become part of this community.

Jenna Hoff

Jenna Hoff

All of the vocal and physical training we did enabled me to see how much freedom and availability are possible, which raised my expectations of myself. But for the first time I felt that I had the tools to move forward with those expectations. I can hone, clarify and broaden my Shakespeare monologues (and other pieces, too!), and I gained moreAll of the vocal and physical training we did enabled me to see how much freedom and availability are possible, which raised my expectations of myself. But for the first time I felt that I had the tools to move forward with those expectations. I can hone, clarify and broaden my Shakespeare monologues (and other pieces, too!), and I gained so much confidence, which is perhaps the most important thing. People have asked me where I ‘got so good at Shakespeare’ and I happily recommend the training programs at S&Co because I honestly think that they are some of the best training available in this country

Maura Matarese

Maura Matarese

I attend at least one workshop at Shakespeare & Company each year as it always allows me an opportunity to grow as actor, to continue to free my actor’s instrument, to meet exciting new artists from around the world, and to spend time in an environment I love, with a faculty whom I deeply respect. moreI attend at least one workshop at Shakespeare & Company each year as it always allows me an opportunity to grow as actor, to continue to free my actor’s instrument, to meet exciting new artists from around the world, and to spend time in an environment I love, with a faculty whom I deeply respect.

Seth Rue

Seth Rue

Shakespeare & Company is a very special organization; one that has a long history, and carefully refined training techniques that have evolved and developed over the past 40 years. But it is the people at Shakespeare & Company that make it what it is. The staff and faculty are among the most compassionate, sincere, and knowledgeable an actor will encounter, moreShakespeare & Company is a very special organization; one that has a long history, and carefully refined training techniques that have evolved and developed over the past 40 years. But it is the people at Shakespeare & Company that make it what it is. The staff and faculty are among the most compassionate, sincere, and knowledgeable an actor will encounter, and their priority is one: to give the actor the tools they need to discover - and wield - the deepest and most whole version of themselves. Until my experience at Shakespeare & Company, I had never experienced such an unconditional and affirming love as I did from the team there, and I left with an equally powerful love for them and for my peers. It was never easy. It was never even simple. And I'm grateful for every moment.

Teresa Spencer

Teresa Spencer

The most important thing I’ve taken from the Conservatory has been a sense of professionalism. I used to consistently walk into auditions feeling the terror of unpreparedness: even if I’d rehearsed my monologue or sides forwards and backwards, I would arrive at an audition and suddenly feel overtaken with a sense of not knowing what the hell I was doing, moreThe most important thing I’ve taken from the Conservatory has been a sense of professionalism. I used to consistently walk into auditions feeling the terror of unpreparedness: even if I’d rehearsed my monologue or sides forwards and backwards, I would arrive at an audition and suddenly feel overtaken with a sense of not knowing what the hell I was doing, and I’m sure that this came through in my demeanor and performance. Since doing the Conservatory, I’ve noticed a marked difference in my confidence. I know my way around my craft, and this changes everything about an audition situation. My pieces are well chosen and well prepared; I know how to center my breath and body; I walk in feeling relaxed and happy to be there. I feel like I belong in the room, and this significant shift in perspective has made an enormous difference for me professionally. I’m getting twice as many callbacks and jobs (yes, jobs!) as I used to. Since returning from the Conservatory, some of the accomplishments I’ve been most proud of have been a callback for Viola in Twelfth Night at an Equity theatre in Baltimore, the title role in a children’s show with Classika Theater (which I’m rehearsing right now), and an invitation to train for a month with a dance theatre company in Virginia. I’ll also be going back to Massachusetts in July to rehearse and perform two one-acts in the KO Festival. I think the best way to summarize what I learned at the Conservatory is that I went from thinking, ‘I want to be an actor,’ to knowing, ‘I am an actor.’ I feel confident in my abilities, and this changes everything about the way that I pursue work. I have a physical and vocal warm-up that works well for me and that I use to prepare for auditions, rehearsals, and performances. I know now how to prepare and how to keep text fresh and alive once I’ve “nailed it” once. All of this has made the process of auditioning so much less of a mystery… I’d recommend the Conservatory to any young actor who’s serious and passionate.

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Shakespeare & Company is a professional live theatre company in the heart of the Berkshires, presenting a vibrant summer performance season featuring the works of Shakespeare in repertory with classic and contemporary plays. The Company offers one of the most extensive actor training programs by a regional theatre in the country, and is also home to an award-winning and nationally recognized theatre-in-education program.

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