Hartford Stage Company

Hartford Stage is one of the leading resident theaters in the United States, known for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works from the past. The company has earned many of the nation's most distinguished awards, including a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre; the Margo Jones Award for Development of New Works; OBIE Awards; a New York Critics Circle Award; the Hartford Courant’s Tapestry Award, recognizing its diversity and inclusiveness efforts; and the Neighborhood Builders Award, which recognizes and rewards individuals and organizations around the country for their community outreach efforts. Hartford Stage's strong community partnerships, education programs, and humanities initiatives exemplify its commitment to reach out to non-traditional and underserved audiences. Its productions and programs reach 130,000 people each year, with 7,000 subscribers and 18,000 students.

As part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, Hartford Stage will produce Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak. Having directed twenty-two productions of Shakespeare’s work, Tresnjak is an acknowledged authority and interpreter of Shakespeare. Twelfth Night is a comedy about human beings who have experienced tragic loss and have made a commitment to grieving. Through the power of love and desire, Shakespeare demonstrates how people can triumph over grief and move on. This meditation on the resilience of the human spirit has undeniable contemporary resonance. Tresnjak will also look at issues of wealth and class, which are well represented in the play and unquestionably a modern issue. Both examinations are perfect departures for in-depth education programs to discuss both the text and its modern implications. Twelfth Night will be performed as a mainstage production in the 489-seat Huntington Theatre. Five student matinees will be produced for more than 25 Hartford-area schools, including one performance specifically designated for economically disadvantaged children who come to the theatre through its InterACT program, a fully subsidized arm of its student performance series program. In total, more than 2,000 students are expected to have the opportunity to experience Twelfth Night.