(Lenox, MA) – Shakespeare & Company recently appointed Susan Dibble as Interim Director for the Company’s Center for Actor Training. Dibble, a Founding Member of Shakespeare & Company, is an educator and artist. Her movement work was seen on stage this past season in Twelfth Night and for the past four decades she has been faculty member for the training program, teaching at the Month Long Intensive, Summer Shakespeare Intensive (formerly the Summer Training Institute), and various workshops.
“We’re truly thrilled to welcome Susan Dibble on board as Interim Director of Training,” said Artistic Director Allyn Burrows. “Susan has a keen eye on all that is exciting about the training program and the company’s work: a vigilance toward the specificity of language and honesty in acting, a generosity of spirit, and a clarity of purpose on stage. She brings a depth of knowledge from within and a breadth of experience from elsewhere that will enrich the training on a personal and a professional level for all participants going forward.”
Dibble is a choreographer, dancer and teacher. Dibble graduated from SUNY College at Purchase with a B.F.A. in Dance in 1976. For the past 39 years, she has worked at Shakespeare & Company as a master teacher of movement and dance for actors, movement director and choreographer, at the same time teaching at a variety of universities including the NYU Tisch MFA in Acting Program. She joined the faculty of the Theater Arts Department at Brandeis University, where she is a full professor and teaches Movement for Actors, Modern Dance, Choreography, Clown, Mask, Period Styles, and Historical Dance. She has been on the faculty at Brandeis for 31 years and served as Theater Arts Department chair for 8 years. Dibble received the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Festival of Creative Arts Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Arts at Brandeis.
“I am honored to serve as the Interim Director of Training,” said Dibble. “I participated in the first January Intensive in 1979, and had the privilege of learning from the extraordinary master teachers who created Shakespeare & Company’s Training Program. Trish Arnold, John Broome, B.H. Barry, Kevin Coleman, Merry Conway, Dennis Krausnick, Kristin Linklater, and Tina Packer gave me valuable insights that I use in my teaching always.”
In addition to her teaching work, Dibble is the director of Susan Dibble Dance Theater and has performed her work for over 40 years in New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont as well as numerous times at Shakespeare & Company in the program “DibbleDance”. She has worked as a choreographer and movement director for the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Berkshire Theatre Group, Manhattan Theatre Club, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, The Nora Theater and The Underground Railroad Theatre.
“Over the years, I have been steeped in the Company’s aesthetic that emphasizes specificity and clarity when communicating in the classroom or onstage,” continued Dibble. “We strengthen our communication through the movement of breath, channeling deep emotion into action and imaginative expression, and by sharing the gifts that a human being has to offer when speaking truthfully. We celebrate humanity through the joy and sorrow, comedy and tragedy in Shakespeare’s language. I look forward to continuing that legacy in the coming year.”
The aesthetic and pedagogy for The Center for Actor Training was created by Tina Packer, Dennis Krausnick, Kristin Linklater, and the Master Teachers. It is through the training programs that the Company’s 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 artists who aspire to bring their talent, intuition, and spirit to a higher level. Upcoming Actor Training programming with Shakespeare & Company Includes The Month-Long Intensive (December 29, 2019 – January 24, 2020), Summer Shakespeare Intensive (May 26, 2020 – June 21, 2020), and an on-going series of shorter workshops hosted on the Company’s campus and in cities around the Country.
About Shakespeare & Company
Located in the beautiful Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Shakespeare & Company is one of the leading Shakespeare festivals of the world. Founded in 1978, the organization attracts over 40,000 patrons annually. The Company is also home to an internationally renowned Center for Actor Training and award-winning Education Program. More information is available at www.shakespeare.org.
