The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles

Founded in 1978, Shakespeare & Company is a classical theater company dedicated to excellence in performance, education, and training. With a core of more than 150 artists, the company produces innovative and accessible Shakespeare performances that hold language at their center. Shakespeare & Company also produces new works of political and social significance, and, in 2008, inaugurated the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre while simultaneously expanding the performance season to 10 months. With an international reputation for providing original, in-depth, classical theater training, the company combines Linklater voice work, text analysis, Alexander movement, fight, dance, clown, and innovative techniques to offer a unique exploration of the actor/audience relationship. It has been working in classrooms and after-school programs for more than 30 years, reaching teachers and students through year-round performances, workshops, and residencies. Core programming includes an extensive nine-week Fall Festival of Shakespeare and a 15-week New England Tour of Shakespeare. Their education program has been recognized as a model in theater arts-in-education by Harvard University's Project Zero and is recommended for replication across the country. The company has received honors such as the prestigious 2005 Commonwealth Award from the state of Massachusetts; the 2006 Coming Up Taller Award for the recognition of it pioneering work with adjudicated juvenile offenders through their Shakespeare in the Courts program, and a “champion of change” from the Arts Education Partnership, GE Foundation, and President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

As part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, Shakespeare & Company will produce Macbeth as part of its New England Tour of Shakepseare. The tour will involve six professional actors playing multiple roles and is similar to the Elizabethan touring productions. Activities included in the tour will be workshops that focus on the emotional connection forges between the actor and the audiences as a vehicle to unlock Shakespeare's language and interactive post-performance forums that encourage students to share their personal understanding of the play. The workshops culminate with each group of students performing the scenes for the peers.