Actors' Shakespeare Project

Somerville, Massachusetts

Founded in 2004, Actors' Shakespeare Project has produced plays in unconventional venues throughout metro Boston, has launched education and outreach programs, and has garnered outstanding reviews and recognition. Simplicity, engagement, relevance, and relationships are the heart of the company's work and its outreach to underserved youth, with the understanding that all youth are vulnerable and all youth are valuable. The company believes that Shakespeare's words are relevant to our times, and it brings these words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of its actors, audiences, and neighborhoods. Actors' Shakespeare Project approaches each Shakespeare play as the centerpiece of an extensive residency for adults, teachers, and youth that takes place in schools, after school in neighborhood service agencies, and at facilities operated by the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services.

As part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, Actors' Shakespeare Project will work with students in 10 underserved metro-Boston schools around groundbreaking dual productions of Henry IV: Part I and Henry IV: Part II. Activities will include in-school workshops, teacher training, open rehearsals, student matinees, post-performance talkbacks, and a culminating all-school student performance festival. In addition, teachers from these schools will attend a week-long Teachers Institute at Salem State College.

Educational Residencies for Juvenile Offenders
Actors' Shakespeare Project's Incarcerated Youth at Play program brings Shakespeare's rich dialogue and resonant themes to new life within the voices and bodies of youths in lock-up or on probation, as well as in the adults who work with these youth. Through exploring the language and the characters who speak it, these youth make powerful, personal connections to their own lives and their world. The program includes residencies in assessment, lock-up, and treatment facilities, and includes teacher training and co-teaching programs with teachers in the Department of Youth Services facilities.

Visit them at: www.actorsshakespeareproject.org