For Teachers
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We rely on the generous support of people like you to sustain our tradition of artistic excellence, and secure a bright future for our Company.
Specialized Workshops
The Center for Actor Training 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!
Playing Shakespeare: Voice, Text, Clown with Jane Nichols and Dave Demke
VOICE. CLOWN. TEXT.
A unique integration of Voice work, Clown work, and Shakespeare text.
Join Master Linklater Voice teacher Dave Demke, and Master Clown teacher Jane Nichols for a week of rigorous play, outrageous comedy, transcendent language.
Shakespeare’s poetic wisdom! The Clown’s poetic soul! It’s Shakespeare like never before!
6 days. 52 contact hours. A lifetime of inspiration.
Previous Shakespeare training or experience is not a prerequisite.
DATES: March 23 to 28, 2020
SCHEDULE: 9:30 am to 9:30 pm each day
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
TUITION: $780 USD
HOUSING: Available on campus for $20 per night
INSTRUCTORS: Jane Nichols and Dave Demke
Early Payment Discount: Pay the full tuition by Feb 28 and save $55! Union and alumni discounts available!
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Audition Intensive
The audition process can be very intimidating, but it is a necessary part of casting and all actors must learn to navigate it. During this workshop, you will discover ways to walk in and out of auditions with self-care by exploring the following:
- What story are you telling yourself and the room when you walk in and walk out?
- What are you communicating?
- What information are you unconsciously or consciously transmitting about yourself as an artist and a human?
- Is there any way to shift that experience?
Through a series of written and performed exercise, we will look at what audition pieces we choose, what clothes we wear, how we handle being seen, and what masks we wear. We will do research on what makes you “you”, and we will see if it’s possible to distill that and present it in the odd strange frame of the audition process.
Andrew has been developing and teaching this exciting workshop for several years. Look forward to uncovering some difficult truths with lots of laughter, playfulness and
DATES: May 1 to 3, 2020
SCHEDULE: Friday, 7pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-10pm; Sunday, 10am-5pm
TUITION: $350 USD
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA
HOUSING: Available on campus for $35 per night
INSTRUCTOR: Andrew Borthwick-Leslie
**Union and alumni discounts available**
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Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare's Plays with Tina Packer
Inspired by Tina Packer’s work in researching and performing Women of Will, this acting workshop explores Shakespeare’s relationship to gender by focusing on the language used by female characters. For the workshop, participants will come prepared with a monologue from one of the female characters discussed in Tina’s book, Women of Will.
DATES: TBD
SCHEDULE: Friday, 6pm-10pm; Saturday, 10am-6pm; Sunday, 10am-4pm
TUITION: $400 USD
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
INSTRUCTOR: Tina Packer
**Union and alumni discounts available**
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NYC Shakespeare Intensive
Shakespeare & Company is returning to NYC for a nine day acting intensive! Join us in our over 40 years of excellence in training actors to perform Shakespeare. We will inspire you to create a performance that is both compelling and accessible to today’s audience.
This workshop is designed to be either an introduction to or a refresher in the Shakespeare & Company approach to unlocking the vitality and power of the Shakespeare text for professional actors. Classes will include work in both Monologues and Scenes as well as Voice and Movement, Personal Connection, Dropping In, Feeding In and our other approaches to revealing the exuberant power of the Shakespeare text.
You know this is the training you’ve always wanted but have never been able to take a full month of rural immersion in Lenox. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the passionate connection you deserve!
DATES: TBD
TUITION: $850 USD (union and alumni discounts available)
From the Alumni
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
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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.