Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz, California

Shakespeare Santa Cruz (SSC) is a professional resident theater company located on the campus of the University of California , Santa Cruz. Founded in 1981 and conceived as a unique collaborative venture between the university, the theater profession, and the larger community, SSC is committed to linking the best of contemporary scholarship with the highest artistic standards of production and the exciting possibilities of repertory performance. Shakespeare Santa Cruz has distinguished itself by performing Shakespeare's plays in thematic context with a wide array of works by other authors. For example, in 2004, they produced The Taming of the Shrew in repertory with the Tamer Tamed by Shakespeare contemporary John Fletcher along with Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in a provocative exploration of marriage. Shakespeare Santa Cruz has also commissioned original translations for A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen and The Forest by Alexander Ostrovsky and produced U.S. premieres of new translations by Ranjit Bolt of The Marriage of Figaro and Tartuffe. Each year, SSC produces a summer season of three or four plays, a winter holiday production, and a spring outreach tour to middle and high schools. SSC's commitment to great language, good storytelling, and bold productions has won an expanding regional audience and national recognition.

In 2008, Shakespeare Santa Cruz's outreach touring company, Shakespeare To Go, will perform Romeo and Juliet for schools in a tri-county area in the California central coast region. SSC will offer free performances to these schools, focusing on the rural underserved areas of southern Santa Cruz and northern Monterey counties, including the Salinas area. SSC will also offer workshops for at-risk students at court and community schools, and will conduct a residency at E.A. Hall Middle School in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. They have an ongoing relationship with Watsonville Community School, whose student population is 98%; a majority of its students have been previously expelled or are on probation from public schools. The residency at E. A. Hall Middle School includes in-depth writing workshops based on the themes and characters of the play. Shakespeare Santa Cruz will offer schools other interactive workshops as well: schools may choose from teacher training, a classroom visit that concentrates on the intricacies and fun in Shakespeare's language, and a classroom workshop that delves into specifics about the play.

http://shakespearesantacruz.org/