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Shakespeare And Co Ma Actor Training Students Learn To Fight

Our Actor Training Faculty

Sheila Bandyopadhyay (Director of Training)

Sheila Bandyopadhyay (she/her) is a movement specialist, actor, director, deviser, and Alexander Technique and yoga teacher. She first came to Shakespeare & Company in 1999 to train at the month-long intensive, taught with the Education Program for several years, and then joined the Training Faculty in 2007 under Founding Director Dennis Krausnick. Sheila has enjoyed a wide range of teaching experiences as an instructor, director, or movement coach with Brandeis University, California State University Summer Arts, Pace University, Brooklyn College, moreSheila Bandyopadhyay (she/her) is a movement specialist, actor, director, deviser, and Alexander Technique and yoga teacher. She first came to Shakespeare & Company in 1999 to train at the month-long intensive, taught with the Education Program for several years, and then joined the Training Faculty in 2007 under Founding Director Dennis Krausnick. Sheila has enjoyed a wide range of teaching experiences as an instructor, director, or movement coach with Brandeis University, California State University Summer Arts, Pace University, Brooklyn College, the Balance Arts Center (NYC), FSU/Asolo’s Conservatory for Actor Training, New York University’s Gallatin School, the Linklater Center, and Emerson College. Sheila served as Head of the Professional Training Program at Dell’Arte International’s School of Physical Theatre in 2021/22. For eight years prior, she was Head of the Movement Department at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City where she regularly directed and coached productions in the second year of training and for the Academy Company. As a theatre maker, Sheila is passionate about classic and contemporary performance that is physically dynamic, poetic and inclusive. In New York, Sheila has directed shows at the Brick, the United Solo Festival (Theater Row), the Tank, the Women in Theater Festival (the Gural), the West End Theater, and the 72nd St Theater Lab. Regional credits include the Boston Center for the Arts, and the Minneapolis and Montreal Fringe Festivals. Sheila has acted in, coached, choreographed and/or directed about half of Shakespeare’s plays over the years and is looking forward to exploring the other half. Favorite Shakespeare roles include Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project), Stephano/Miranda in The Tempest (Stages on the Sound), and Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New Hampshire Shakespeare Festival). Sheila is a member of the Humanist Project and a sponsored artist with Leviathan Lab. Education and training: Brandeis University (BA, Theatre Arts), Dell’Arte International (Professional Training in Lecoq/Physical Theatre/Devising), NYU Gallatin (Master’s Degree in Movement and Physical Performance), and ATNYC’s Alexander Technique Teacher Certification (m. AmSAT). www.sheilabnyc.com IG: @sheilabnyc

Sarah Kate Anderson

Sarah Kate Anderson (she or they) is an actor, director, and theatre educator who teaches in the Film and Theatre Department at San José State University. She has taught various university classes ranging from Classical Acting and Acting for Animation Majors to Theatre Appreciation and Voice and Movement for the Actor at institutions including De Anza Community College in Cupertino, CA, and The Art Institute in Sunnyvale, CA. Sarah Kate is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts more

Ariel Bock

Ariel is the Producing Associate at Shakespeare & Company. Roles include: Rose in The Children, Mom in Ugly Lies the Bone, Mistress Quickly in Henry IV pts 1&2, Goneril in King Lear, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Elizabeth in Richard III, Audrey in As You Like it, Hippolyta in Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Mistress Quickly in Merry Wives of Windsor, Paulina in The Winters Tale, Ruth in Private Eyes, the Woman in Laughing Wild, more

Andrew Borthwick-Leslie

Andrew Borthwick-Leslie is a member of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA, where he has taught, directed, and acted for twenty years. He is also the co-Artistic Director of The Humanist Project in NYC. He has taught acting and voice at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Emerson College, DeSales University and the University of Maryland among others. Andrew has run workshops for the Center for Renaissance Studies, the American Bar Association, the New England Homeless Veterans shelter and many more

Jenna May Cass

Jenna May found her way to Shakespeare & Company while training in Linklater Voice. After taking both the Month-Long Intensive and the Conservatory in 2012, she immediately returned to begin teacher training, ultimately falling in love with the sonnet progression, which she now teaches, along with text. Originally from Washington State, Jenna May earned a degree in dramatic arts from Western Washington University, trained further with RADA, Theatricum Botanicum, Louis Colaianni, and Natsuko Ohama. Now based in the Berkshires, Jenna more

Merry Conway

Merry Conway is a teacher, and performer. She teaches workshops in a range of subjects: Movement for Actors, Clown, and has developed original pedagogy on The Embodied Humors, Wit and Wordplay and The Fool. Merry trained with Trish Arnold in London and her work has continued to provide a strong foundation for Merry’s thought. Merry is a Founding Teacher at Shakespeare & Company, having taught at the first January workshop, bringing movement as well as Clown into the Company pedagogy, more

Paul D'Agostino

Paul D’Agostino is an assistant professor of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he’s been on faculty since 2014. Additionally, he serves as the resident voice teacher for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company and Boston University Summer Theater Institute (both since 2013). A Designated Linklater Teacher and a certified teacher of The Alexander Technique, he holds a Master of Music in Musical Theater from The Boston Conservatory and an M.F.A. in Theatre Education with a concentration in voice and more

Dave Demke

Dave Demke is a Shakespeare & Company Senior Faculty member and a
Designated Linklater Voice teacher. He received his BA in Theatre Arts
from Minnesota State University, and MFA in Performance from the
University of Maryland. He was the Artistic Director of Stark Raving Theatre
in Portland, OR; the Associate Director of Training for Shakespeare &
Company; and principle dancer/choreographer for the Red River Dance
Company in Fargo, ND. As an actor he has appeared in productions in New
York more

Marie Ramirez Downing

Marie (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Performance and Director of The Acting Program at Sonoma State University in the North Bay of California. She has an M.F.A. in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University, and a B.A. in Theatre Arts, Acting from California State University, Fresno. She is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher (Shakespeare & Company 2012). Marie is also a Bronze Founding Member of the Linklater Centre in Orkney, Scotland where she has continued more

Tom Giordano

Tom Giordano is an actor, teacher and director based in New York City. His training as an actor at the Shakespeare & Company January Intensive was the springboard to receiving his MFA from Columbia University. While at Columbia, he trained extensively in voice and Shakespeare with Kristin Linklater and Andrea Haring, inspiring him to pursue and complete his designation as a teacher of Linklater Voice. He has worked in the Education and Training programs at Shakespeare more

Susan Dibble

Susan Dibble is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and painter. She graduated from SUNY College at Purchase with a B.F.A. in Dance in 1976. In 1979, Susan was a participant in the first Shakespeare & Company January Intensive. Susan is a founding member of Shakespeare & Company where she has worked for the past 39 years as a master teacher of movement and dance for actors, movement director and choreographer. In 1987, after teaching at a variety of universities including NYU more

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 more

Charls Sedgwick Hall

Charls Sedgwick Hall (Actor, Movement Teacher, Director) ) Charls’s acting credits include performances in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged, Revised), Romeo and Juliet, A Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Shakespeare & Company; The Color Purple (The Musical) Los Angeles Ovations Award winning production, The Next Fairytale, The Escape Artist’s Children, and Follow with Celebration Theatre; Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing with Southern California Shakespeare Festival; moreCharls Sedgwick Hall (Actor, Movement Teacher, Director) ) Charls’s acting credits include performances in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged, Revised), Romeo and Juliet, A Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Shakespeare & Company; The Color Purple (The Musical) Los Angeles Ovations Award winning production, The Next Fairytale, The Escape Artist’s Children, and Follow with Celebration Theatre; Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing with Southern California Shakespeare Festival; Uncle Vanya, As You Like It, The Vigil with RAAP Theater Company; A Christmas Carol, The Little Foxes, Cymbeline, Cyrano, with A Noise Within; Angels of Lemnos, David and Goliath in America, Hitler’s Head, The Lady’s Not For Burning with The Road Theatre Company; Tartuffe and Arms and The Man with The Classical Theatre Company; Twelfth Night and Saint Joan with The Royston Theater Company; as well as productions of Faith and The Good Thing, Our Country’s Good, Three Sisters, Death Unit, Measure For Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Firebugs. The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew and Exit The King. Directing credits include Other World Lover and Afrocentricities with MPAACT, OUTStories and The Red Train Café with Celebration Theatre. During his many years of performing and studying with Shakespeare & Company, Charls toured with the School’s Program and trained as a Movement teacher in the discipline of Trish Arnold. He has taught as a Guest Professor in Movement at the National Institute of Performing Arts in Sydney, Australia; a Guest Professor in Movement and a Guest Artist performing in Angels of Lemnos at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and held the position of Director of Training/Movement Instructor with Two Pence Theatre Company. Charls, a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, holds an MFA from the NYU-School of the Performing Arts Graduate Acting Program, teaches and continues to study other Movement disciplines, as well as Shakespeare’s Text, Rhetoric and Sonnets.

Michael Hammond

Michael Hammond is an actor, director, playwright and teacher, who recently retired after ten years as an instructor at Boston University’s School of Theatre. Prior to Boston University, he worked for many years at Shakespeare & Company, last serving there as associate artistic director. He has appeared as an actor on Broadway, and at various regional theaters. His most recent live performance was part of a collaboration entitled The Cattle, presented at Douglas Dunn’s studio in New more

Rory Hammond

Rory has studied Shakespeare her entire life and has also worked as an Education Artist at Shakespeare & Company since 2015. She has spent the last three years focusing on directing and teaching Shakespeare to kids from ages 7-18. Directing Credits: Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, and Macbeth for the Fall Festival of Shakespeare. New York acting credits include: Pericles, directed by Edward Berkeley at SoHo Rep, Measure for Measure at Circle in the Square also directed by Edward more

Sarah Hickler

Sarah Hickler is an actor, deviser, director and theater educator. She has directed, choreographed and taught with the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Co., Sedona Shakespeare, Sun Valley Shakespeare, and Actor’s Shakespeare Project. She is an Associate Professor and Head of Acting at Emerson College in Boston, where she teaches Movement, Action Theater and Shakespeare. Sarah has an MFA from Boston University and is a Certified in Authentic Movement facilitation and Action Theater™. Sarah has a long association with Shakespeare & Co., more

Tom Jaeger

Tom Jaeger has been teaching, acting, training, managing and directing at Shakespeare & Company since 1991. Before coming here he trained at Washington University in St. Louis with Hollis Huston, a Lecoq trained theatre maker and performance theorist. While in St. Louis he was also the managing director of the Holy Roman Repertory Company, a live radio theatre. He has also done stints at MIT and Harvard, including the first Shakespeare production done in the Sanders Theatre at Harvard in more

Edgar Landa

Edgar Landa is an actor/director from Los Angeles. He also creates fights & violence for theatres large and small. He has been a guest director at Off Square Theatre/Thin Air Shakespeare for the past five summers. He has directed at theatres in L.A. and beyond and has also been a guest director at USC, Long Beach State University and Loyola Marymount University. As a fight director Edgar has created mayhem at numerous theatres across Southern California and elsewhere including: more

Paula Langton

Paula Langton - Actor and Designated Linklater Voice Teacher - is honored to return to teach at Shakespeare & Company where she encountered powerful teaching mentors, including Master Voice Teacher, Kristin Linklater, who was in residence when she participated in her first "intensive" in 1986. It was here that Paula received some of the most transformational training of her career. She is currently an Associate Professor on The School of Theatre faculty at Boston University where she has taught since morePaula Langton - Actor and Designated Linklater Voice Teacher - is honored to return to teach at Shakespeare & Company where she encountered powerful teaching mentors, including Master Voice Teacher, Kristin Linklater, who was in residence when she participated in her first "intensive" in 1986. It was here that Paula received some of the most transformational training of her career. She is currently an Associate Professor on The School of Theatre faculty at Boston University where she has taught since 1996 and served as Head of Acting for the past 20 years. Paula met Shakespeare & Company in the early 80s as an actor in training and was a member of the company's elementary schools program. In the late 80s, she became part of a motley crew of clowns, then called "Shakessquad & Clown Company" where she spent countless summer hours fooling about, devising and performing original, comedic material with and for the company. Paula apprenticed directly with Kristin Linklater for over three years and served as her assistant, and then, successor, for Shakespeare & Company's NEH funded Shakespeare Institute - (actor/ teacher training for high school teachers.) She was officially designated by Linklater to teach voice in 1991 and last taught voice at Shakespeare & Company's month long intensive in January of 2003. She joined Kristin Linklater at Emerson College in 1991 as a full time Artist in Residence for five years, where she assisted in the development of the acting program under Linklater's direction. She occasionally co-teaches with Linklater at The Kristin Linklater Voice Centre in Orkney, Scotland. Other teaching credits include: Trinity Rep Conservatory, University of Massachusetts, Wheaton College, Actors' Shakespeare Project, and Festa Di Teatro Ecologico, in Stromboli Italy. Paula's acting credits include: Shakespeare & Company's mainstage at The Mount where she played in The Tempest, at The Tina Packer Playhouse in Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost, & Mother Courage, and she has twice had the joy of being invited to be a part of DibbleDance. She was a member of Kristin Linklater and Carol Gilligan's all female Shakespeare company- Company of Women, and was director of the Company of Girls..Other acting credits include productions with American Repertory Theatre, La Mama etc, Actors Shakespeare Project, Potomac Theatre Co. NYC, LA Women's Shakespeare, The Olney Theatre, New Rep, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, The Charles Playhouse, Boston Theatre Works, Boston Playwrights Theatre, and Festa Di Teatro Eco Logico, to name a few. Paula has a band called The Crazy Neighbors, and is a member of Actor's Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild and Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Inc.

Cecil MacKinnon

Cecil MacKinnon is delighted to be back at Shakespeare & Company where she has taught in many workshops. For Shakespeare & Company, she directed productions including, on the Mainstage: Love's Labour's Lost, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, and The Comedy of Errors. Elsewhere, a sampling includes: in Madison, Wisconsin: On the Razzle, for the Naples Opera Company Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream, At the Portland Stage Co. Much Ado About Nothing and Later Life (Gurney).While an Arts Professor at more

Corinna May

Corinna is a 30-year member of Shakespeare & Company, took her first Intensive in 1990, went on the education tour right afterwards, and has been working here ever since both as an actor (33+ roles and counting), and faculty member in and Education. Corinna has acted in NY and regional theatre in classical, modern, and new plays, appeared in film, on television, in radio plays and audio books. She stars in the indie feature Split Ends, directed by Dorothy moreCorinna is a 30-year member of Shakespeare & Company, took her first Intensive in 1990, went on the education tour right afterwards, and has been working here ever since both as an actor (33+ roles and counting), and faculty member in and Education. Corinna has acted in NY and regional theatre in classical, modern, and new plays, appeared in film, on television, in radio plays and audio books. She stars in the indie feature Split Ends, directed by Dorothy Lyman, & spent two years on the Broadway tour of The Graduate, with Jerry Hall, Linda Gray, Lorraine Bracco, Kelly McGillis and Morgan Fairchild as the various Missus Robinsons. TV includes “House of Cards” and “Law & Order”. Her one-woman play Dancing With The Czar was produced at Ventfort Hall in Lenox, MA. As a fight director, Corinna has staged fights for both classical and contemporary plays. She studied stage fighting with S&Co’s Founding Master Fight Teacher, BH Barry while training at Circle in the Square Theatre School, and then with her mentor, Shakespeare & Company’s Master Fight Teacher Tony Simotes. She has also trained with the Society of American Fight Directors and with Fight Directors Canada. Corinna is a Designated Linklater Method voice teacher and a Feldenkrais Method practitioner, one of only a handful of people in the world to hold both certifications. Currently serving as an adjunct assistant professor of Voice & Speech at the Actors Studio Drama School MFA program at Pace University, she has also taught at Smith, MIT, Syracuse University, a couple of SUNYs, Fordham, the National Theatre Institute and Circle-in-the-Square Theatre School. Corinna is a lead trainer with the international consulting company, The Cornell Voice Advisory/Australia. Her own private coaching practice serves actors, teachers, lawyers, executives, politicians, academics and clergy. She is a proud Union member: AEA, SAG-AFTRA, UAFP, Dramatists Guild; she’s a graduate of Barnard College, and Circle-in-the-Square Theatre School. She has recently begun taking workshops in staging theatrical intimacy with Intimacy Directors International, and is passionate about helping to integrate this excellent and thrilling work into every aspect of the performing arts.

Mary Mayo

Mary is a Designated Linklater teacher with many years experience acting and teaching voice, acting and improvisation in universities and professional theatre training programs all over the United States including Shakespeare & Company, University of Maryland, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, University of Mississippi, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Syracuse University. She has an M.Litt/MFA in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance from Mary Baldwin College and the American Shakespeare Center. Mary has coached voice and dialects at Arena Stage, more

Kristen Moriarty

Kristen Moriarty (she/her/hers) is a teaching artist, actor, mom, sentimentalist, and an infinite seeker of thinking and feeling deeply. After earning her BFA in Acting/Dance at Adelphi University, she worked as an actor and movement choreographer in Chicago for several years before going back to school to pursue an MFA in acting/teaching at the University of Montana. In 2011, while earning her MFA, she also began her actor training with Shakespeare & Company where she fell in love with Shakespeare’s more

Julie Nelson

Julie Nelson (she/her) is an actor, teacher, and professor emeritus (sic) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Recently she was in George Brant’s Dark Room at Bridge Rep Theater, Boston and played Marie Antoinette in The Revolutionists at Silverthorne Theater. Other roles include Mrs. Gardiner and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice at Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, NC, and Grace in Vigil at Portland Stage Company, Portland, Maine. In New York she played Childie in The more

Normi Noel

Normi Noel (she/her), director and Linklater voice teacher, came to the first Shakespeare and Co. workshop in 1979; as a company member, she has directed twenty six productions there, as well as shows in Boston, New York and the Berkshires. Currently she is teaching acting and voice at Smith College, and has taught on and off with the Shakespeare & Company faculty, as well as six years as assistant professor at BU, and part time at MIT, NYU, more

Jane Nichols

Jane Nichols is an actress, director, and teacher. She first studied with Shakespeare & Company in 1983, and has taught and acted with the Company off and on since then. Inspired by the work of Merry Conway at the 1983 workshop, Jane developed a passion for Clowning. Her teaching today brings together skills and techniques of Le Jeu, Physical Comedy, Clown, Bouffon, Improvisation, and Mask.

In addition to Merry Conway, she has studied with Philippe Gaulier (Ecole Gaulier), Clive

In addition to Merry Conway, she has studied with Philippe Gaulier (Ecole Gaulier), Clive Mendes (Theatre Complicite), Ronlin Foreman (DellArte School of Physical Theatre), Michael Kennard (co-founder of Canada’s Mump & Smoot, and Master teacher of the Richard Pochinko native American mask/clown technique), Avner Eisenberg (Avner the Eccentric), Davis Robinson (author of Physical Comedy Handbook), Keith Johnstone (Impro and Impro for Storytellers), and world-renowned Czech clown, Bolek Polivka.

Before S&Co, Jane worked as an actress in Boston, and was the Founder/Artistic Director of Crosswalk Theatre for Children. In 1985, applying her knowledge of children’s theatre to Shakespeare, Jane created and implemented the curriculum for the S&Co Elementary and Jr High School program which continues to this day.

In addition to S&Co, Jane has held teaching positions at the Yale School of Drama; Juilliard; Harvard University; ART; ACT; Brown University; the Actors Center in NYC; Stella Adler Conservatory; Emerson College; Simon’s Rock College of Bard, and University of Washington.

She has directed shows at Harvard University, Brown University, Washington Ensemble Theatre (WET), Intiman Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Co, Seattle University, Cornish College of the Arts, and Room Circus Medical Clowning. With her company of former clown students, Logic Limited, Ltd., she devised: Desdemona’s Dream; Schaden, Freude, and You: A 3 Clown Seminar; TiVO la Resistance; New Shorts; and A Night at the Trojan Wall: a Clown version of the Iliad. For Cirque du Soleil she worked with John Gilkey, Daniel Passer, and Wayne Wilson to develop and devise the cabaret Your New Best Friends.

Acting credits include roles at Dallas Theatre Center, Portland Stage Co, En Garde Arts, Synapse Productions, New Georges, Shakespeare & Company, Gloucester Stage Co, Nora Theatre, Lyric Stage, Berkshire Public, Counterpoint Theatre, Cambridge Theatre Co. Film and TV credits include: School Ties; Heights; The Living Room Waltz; Ed; Law & Order SVU; America’s Most Wanted; Connect With English; and Rachel’s Dinner with Olympia Dukakis. She has done numerous voice overs and commercials.

Natsuko Ohama

One of the premier voice teachers in the world, Natsuko trained under legendary Master Kristin Linklater at the Working Theatre in New York. She is a founding member and permanent faculty of Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), a senior artist at Pan Asian Rep NewYork, a certified Joy of Phonetics teacher trained by Louis Colaianni and was the Director of Training at the National Arts Center of Canada. She has taught at numerous institutions all over North America, including NYU, more

Victoria Rhoades

Victoria Rhoades, PhD (she/her) is an educator, actor and director, specializing in Shakespeare and girls’ and boys’ development. Tori is a senior faculty of Movement and Text in the Training Program and has worked for years in various areas of the Education Program. She currently serves as founder and Executive Director of the newly developing, SAGE Center, (Shakespeare, the Arts, Gender and Education). Tori strives to create spaces where young women and men can respectfully and playfully learn from, and more

Rebecca Schneebaum

Rebecca Schneebaum (she/her) is currently based in Brooklyn NYC, here on the ancestral lands of the Lenape people. Rebecca is an actor, Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, theatre maker, and loving dog mom. As an actor she has performed with LAByrinth Theatre Company, American Repertory Theatre, The Huntington Theatre, Boston Playwright’s Theatre, Actors' Shakespeare Project, Seacoast Repertory Theatre, Brown Box Theatre Project, and many others. She was on the acting faculty at Emerson College for the last five years as

Gwendolyn Schwinke

Gwendolyn Schwinke (she/her) has served as voice and text coach at Shakespeare & Company for The Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Or, Ugly Lies the Bone, The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, The Unexpected Man and Shakespeare and the Language that Shaped a World, and created and directed Worse than Wolves for Henry VI.6. She is Resident Vocal Coach for PlayMakers Repertory Company and teaches voice in the MFA program more

Michael F. Toomey

Michael (he/him) has been company member at Shakespeare & Company for nearly twenty years where he is an actor, director and faculty member. He is the Co-Artistic Director of the NYC based theatre company The Humanist Project. He also a founding member and trustee of Split Knuckle Theatre, which devises new works of theatre and is currently touring throughout the world with recent performances in Bangkok, Athens and Paris. Michael has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Binghamton University teaching more

Kevin Vavasseur

Kevin Vavasseur is a theater artist whose credits include work at Highways Performance Space, Theater @ Boston Court, Odyssey Theater, Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, H.E.R.E, Company of Angels, Los Angeles Theater Center, Sacred Fools, Edinburgh International Arts Festival, New York International Fringe Festival, London Shakespeare Studio and Lincoln Center. An NAACP Image, GLAAD Media and Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award nominee for acting, he is a Lincoln Center Directors' Lab alum and a Stage Directors and Choreographers Union more

Sarah Weatherwax

Sarah Weatherwax, originally from the US, has an honours BFA in Acting from Emerson College. She now lives with her family in Toronto. Along with private voice/audition coaching, she's worked as an on-set acting coach and taught at various places: Humber College Comedy Program; Workman Arts, a company devoted to fine arts training for people struggling with addiction and/or mental illness; Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts; and Straeon Acting Studios in Toronto, Montreal and Boston. She's done voice work on more

Ryan Winkles

Ryan Winkles has been a company member at Shakespeare & Company since 2006 as an actor, fight choreographer, and teacher. He has acted in, or choreographed stage fight for, over 30 productions with S&Co, the majority of which were productions of Shakespeare plays. He has taught in the Summer Training Institute, the January Intensive, and nearly every S&Co Education program.

Apart from S&Co he has acted in productions from one side of Massachusetts to the other with companies more

Kristin Wold

Kristin Wold first trained and acted with Shakespeare & Company in 1987, playing Cobweb in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Abhorson in Measure for Measure. Acting roles with the company since then include Shakespeare’s Will (Anne Hathaway), Julius Caesar (Portia, Calpurnia, Lucius), King Lear (Regan), Dibbledance (Dancer), The Tempest (Ariel), The Memory of Water (Teresa), Sea Marks (Timothea), Othello (Emilia), Ice Glen (Sarah), King Lear (Cordelia), Twelfth Night (Viola), Measure For Measure (Isabella), Berkeley Square (Helen), Macbeth (Witch, Lady Macduff), more

Dennis Krausnick (1942-2018)

Dennis Krausnick was a founder of Shakespeare & Company and served as its Director of Training from 1993 to 2018. Krausnick was central to the creation and development of the Company’s internationally acclaimed actor training programs. He also developed a number of training programs utilizing theater training methods for corporate and other non-theater clientele. Krausnick held an MA from St. Louis University and an MFA in Acting from NYU. As a Master Teacher of text and rhetoric, Krausnick provided residencies and more

From the Alumni

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 more

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 more

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 more

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, more

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. more

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, more

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.