Shakespeare Theatre Company

Since 1986, the Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company has become the nation’s leading force in presenting and preserving classical theater; each season the Theatre provides productions and programs for nearly 205,000 people. Its core mission is to present classic theatre of scope and size in an imaginative, skillful, and accessible American style that honors the playwrights’ language and intentions while viewing their work through a 21st-century lens. The company endeavors to be an important resource to an expanded national and international community and a premier destination for classic theater, a training ground for the next generation of theater artists, and a model provider of high-quality educational content for students and scholars. During the 2012-2013 Season, the Shakespeare Theatre Company will produce six classic plays, maintain a resident company of professional actors complemented by guest artists of national and international stature, present the works of three European theatres, implement 26 education programs for both adult and student learners, present a free Happenings at the Harman performance series, and train professional actors in the classic tradition through the Academy for Classical Acting.

 

As part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, The Shakespeare Theatre Company will produce 13 Shakespearience matinees offered for the following productions: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Ethan McSweeny; Coriolanus, directed by David Muse; and The Winter’s Tale, directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. Performances will take place in both of the Theatre’s downtown Washington, D.C. venues. The company expects to reach approximately 8,000 students in grades six to 12 from nearly 100 Washington, D.C.-area schools with their Shakespearience program. The program is designed to increase social and cultural access to classic theater and the theatrical process for teachers and students and has provided more than 37,000 middle- and high-school students from the District of Columbia and adjacent Maryland and Virginia counties with increased access to the work on the mainstage through deeply subsidized tickets, mandatory pre-performance in-school workshops, and post-performance talkbacks with the actors. Classrooms receive complimentary copies of the First Folio Teacher and Student Resource Guide, which are developed by the education department for each production and include a plot synopsis, information about the play and playwright, background information on the world and the characters in the play, and pre- and post-performance activity ideas.