The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at DeSales University

Center Valley , Pennsylvania

The mission of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival (PSF) is to enrich, inspire, engage, and entertain the widest possible audience through first-rate professional productions of classical and contemporary plays, with a core commitment to the works of Shakespeare and other master dramatists, and through an array of educational outreach and mentorship programs. PSF is further committed to serving as a cultural center for the region, giving special attention to the next generation. PSF's summer season consists of five full-scale productions, with a central focus on two Shakespeare plays supplemented by two plays from world literature, one children's play, and a free outdoor Green Show, all performed on the campus of DeSales University. The official Shakespeare Festival of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, PSF is dedicated to the highest levels of artistic excellence; its award-winning company of world-class artists and artisans has featured many Broadway veterans and, in recent seasons, winners and nominees of the Tony, Emmy, Obie, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Jefferson, and Barrymore awards. Since 1992, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival has inspired, engaged, and entertained nearly 400,000 patrons from 22 states. The company is a constituent of the Theatre Communications Group and a member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America.

The 2007 Linny Fowler WillPower Tour, featured performances of Macbeth, traveled to schools throughout Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The support from Shakespeare for a New Generation allow PSF to extend their tour from four to six weeks and expand WillPower's audience in underserved schools in remote regions. Until 2007, taking WillPower beyond a 75-mile radius had been cost prohibitive, restricting the tour to areas within reasonable driving distance that did not requier overnight stays. Since its inception in 2000, WillPower has helped bridge the gap between just reading about Shakespeare and experiencing it directly through live performance, hands-on workshops, and related educational activities for middle- and high-school students throughout a tri-state area. Designed to “turn on” young minds to the power of language, WillPower continues to demonstrate a successful track record for reaching underserved schools in both urban and rural communities. WillPower serves as the cornerstone of Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's educational outreach efforts, strengthening its leadership role in providing theater-related education, mentorship, and training through hands-on workshops and educational partnerships. PSF's goal is for students to gain a better understanding of language and literature and to discover in the language aspects of their own being and their connectedness to the larger human community.

Visit them at: http://www.pashakespeare.org/

Feedback from Company

Upon completion of the 2007 tour, which began in October and ended in November, WillPower reached approximately 14,200 students, making this tour the largest in WillPower's eight-year history, reflecting a 40% increase over last year's total of participants. Expanding WillPower touring programs to a nine-month operation to reach all of Pennsylvania is a critical component of PSF's strategic plan. The growth and expansion of this year's tour underscores PSF's commitment to providing greater access to the arts, to those who need it most. But number aside, without question, one of the major highlights of 2007 was bringing WillPower to the far reaches of the state - in counties as far north as the New York/Pennsylvania border and as far west as the as the Pittsburg area - to students who had never before experienced live, professional theater of this caliber, in particular, a Shakespeare play. Ultimately, the primary highlight is that Shakespeare's language, characters, and ideas resonated in the hearts and minds of the students we reached.