New Stage Theatre

Jackson, Mississippi

Specially selected to participate in Shakespeare for a New Generation to reach student audiences in Mississippi.

New Stage Theatre located in Jackson, Mississippi, was chartered as a nonprofit organization in 1965 and is currently operating in its 42nd season. New Stage's first home was an adapted150-seat church at the corner of Gallatin and Hooker Streets where they produced 13 seasons before moving to its present site in the historic Belhaven Neighborhood. As Mississippi's only year-round operating professional theater, the mission of New Stage Theatre is to provide professional theater of the highest quality of contemporary and class works, which are selected for their artistic merit and their power to illuminate the human condition. Challenging new works are developed through the Eudora Welty New Play Series named for the distinguished writer. They are dedicated to cultivating and educating a culturally diverse audience by gathering the finest available resources including playwrights, actors, directors, designers, technicians, administrators, trainees, and board members. The education department offers artistic and technical internships, maintains touring programs supported by teachers' materials for schools statewide, and youth and adult classes. They produce five plays each year in its subscription series, in addition to a Christmas show, an annual student matinee, and a kids-only show that features area youth. Additionally, they have begun a second season called Unframed at New Stage featuring alternative selections.

During the 2007-2008 school year, New Stage Theatre will tour an abridged version of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream to schools in Mississippi. Performed by a well-trained team of four professional actors, A Midsummer Night's Dream will be performed at ten of Mississippi's poorest schools. The tour sites will include low-income schools in the underserved rural area of the Delta region, northeast Mississippi schools, and school districts in the Mississippi coastal counties impacted by Katrina. The company will also conduct Stand Up With Shakespeare workshops to groups of language arts students at the schools before each performance. This one-hour workshop is designed to destroy the myth that Shakespeare's language can't be understood. Students will get up on their feet, read, and participate in scenes selected from Shakespeare plays read in the high school curriculum. The company will receive intensive training with a qualified Shakespeare consultant who will assist with workshop and play presentation. Following each performance, there will be a question and answer session with the cast designed to field questions about Shakespeare and theater. The cast will encourage discussions of how Shakespeare is relevant in our time and how to understand the language. The schools served by the touring program will be selected in cooperation with educators from each region. Because of support received from Shakespeare for a New Generation, the performances and workshops will be provided at no cost to the ten schools and will reach approximately 3,000 students, many who have no other opportunity to see live theater.

http://www.newstagetheatre.com/