“This is a rock concert of Shakespeare! Show after show after show the theater is jammed with kids and adults cheering for the performers and the productions.” – WBUR Boston
Nationally replicated and locally treasured, the annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare brings more than 500 high school students together each year for a nine-week, non-competitive exploration of multiple Shakespeare plays.
The flagship of Shakespeare & Company’s Education Program, the annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare is a residency at 10 high schools in Massachusetts and New York. Shakespeare & Company directing teams lead students at each school through a language-based exploration of different Shakespeare plays, culminating in full-scale productions at their schools and on the main stage at our own Tina Packer Playhouse. When high-energy teenagers are turned loose through the power of Shakespeare’s language, the thrill is palpable, and the houses are packed.
The Fall Festival deeply engages students through personally meaningful, educationally rigorous and dramatically compelling experiences of Shakespeare’s classical dramas. The Festival is truly a celebration, never a competition. Students from multiple schools work collaboratively, exploring Shakespeare’s words, unpacking the humor and the heartbreak, the intensity and humanity of these unparalleled plays.
Fall Festival Weekend
November 20 – 23
Tina Packer Playhouse Performance Schedule 2025
THURSDAY, NOV. 20
6:15 pm Chatham High School’s Julius Caesar
Directed by: Nick Nudler & Madeline Weltchek
Scenic Design: Grace Goosman
Costume Design: Silas Leiter
8:30 pm Monument Regional High School School’s Twelfth Night
Directed by: Malle Winters & Anna Rock
Scenic Design: Alex Drake
Costume Design: Lezlie Lee
FRIDAY, NOV. 21
6:15 pm Lee Middle & High School’s Much Ado About Nothing
Directed by: Abigail St. John & Lochlan Angle
Scenic Design: Tapaynga Hill
Costume Design: Aimee Green
8:30 pm Pittsfield High School’s Hamlet
Directed by: Naire Poole & Darius Journigan
Scenic Design: Alec Westmoreland
Costume Design: Michelle Hathaway
SATURDAY, NOV. 22
1:15 pm Lenox Memorial High School’s Romeo and Juliet
Directed by: Tori Rhoades & Mitchel Csermak
Scenic Design: Alec Westmoreland
Costume Design: Lezlie Lee
3:30 pm Berkshire Waldorf High School’s Hamlet
Directed by: JoJo McDonald & Lydia Duff
Scenic Design: Rey Hankinson
Costume Design: Rin Menge
6:15 pm Mt. Greylock Regional School’s Twelfth Night
Directed by: Erin Jones & Luke Haskell
Scenic Design: Rey Hankinson
Costume Design: Cal Murphy
8:30 pm Springfield Central High School’s Romeo and Juliet
Directed by: Ellie Bartz, Kristin Yates, & Maurice Doran
Scenic Design: Tapaynga Hill
Costume Design: Aimee Green
SUNDAY, NOV. 23
1:15 pm Taconic Hills Jr. & Sr. High School’s Macbeth
Directed by: Kirsten Peacock & Kirsten Mulrenan
Scenic Design: Grace Goosman
Costume Design: Silas Leiter
3:30 pm Mt. Everettt Regional School’s Richard III
Directed by: Madeleine Maggio & John Leggett
Scenic Design: Alex Drake
Costume Design: Rin Menge
5:00 pm Closing Reverence
* Show schedule subject to change.
Couldn’t make the festival in person? Community Television for the Southern Berkshires will be
selling DVD, Blu-ray and digital downloads of all the performances from Fall Festival.
Visit ctsbtv.org/fallfest!
Gallery
