Orlando Shakespeare Theater

Orlando, Florida

With Shakespeare as its standard and inspiration, the Orlando Shakespeare Theater (formerly the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival) produces bold professional theater, develops new plays, and provides innovative educational experiences that enrich the community. The company's vision is to create theater of extraordinary quality that encourages the actor/audience relationship, embraces the passionate use of language, and ignites the imagination. As central Florida's largest professional theater, the theater presents year-round programming of six mainstage productions, three Theater for Young Audiences productions, its annual 10-day PlayFest: The Harriet Lake Festival of New Plays, in-schools residencies, on-site classes, summer camps, and a myriad of other programs. The Orlando Shakespeare Theater is highly acclaimed for bringing the world of Shakespeare to life for elementary, middle, and high schools students both in the classroom and on state at professional productions.

The Orlando Shakespeare Theater will combine two highly acclaimed and established programs to produce a project for underserved audiences in the central Florida area. This project will begin with the Shakespeare Alive! program focusing on one of the three Shakespeare productions for the 2007–2008 season: The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, and Macbeth. In this award-winning program, trained actor/educators get students on their feet and performing Shakespeare within the first five minutes of the workshop. First, students perform a guided, interactive plot summary of one of the productions in a way that is engaging, physically involving, and fun. Next, actor/educators lead a group paraphrasing activity that teaches students how to connect with and make Shakespeare's language come alive using their own vernacular. Students then perform their scenes, first in their paraphrase and then once again using Shakespeare's text. The project will culminate in attendance at a fully-staged, professional production of one of these Shakespeare plays, which will include a talkback session with the cast following the performance. The middle and high schools selected to participate will receive the Shakespeare Alive! program, tickets to the related Shakespeare production, and support materials for teachers and students. The goal is to spend approximately 20 days presenting workshops and provide 2,000 tickets free-of-charge to the performances.

http://www.orlandoshakes.org/