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Shakespeare & Company’s Winter Residency Programs Begin Performances
Posted by Gail M. Burns - January 2010
{Lenox, MA}—Shakespeare & Company’s popular winter Elementary And Middle School Residency programs culminate with student productions of some of Shakespeare’s best-loved tales beginning next week. Please see schedule of performances below. For more information on both the Company’s Winter and Spring Residency programs and other Education Programs, contact Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware at (413) 637-1199 ext. 172 or education@shakespeare.org.
The Education Program’s Residencies are among S&Co.’s longest running programs. Lenox Middle School, for instance, has participated for over 20 years. A series of residencies, each spanning four to eight weeks, are conducted in different schools from December through May of each year. Some are conducted in-class while others are after school programs. Each year, over 300 students participate, under the direction of Shakespeare & Company Education artists and Company actors. This year’s instructors include Alyssa Bradoc, Kelly Galvin, Jennie Jadow, Kelley Johnston, Meg O’Connor, Josh Aaron McCabe and Allissa Wickham. Galvin, McCabe and Jadow can also be seen onstage performing in S&Co.’s upcoming, highly anticipated production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) January 29 through March 21. Visit www.shakespeare.org for details.
During the early part of the Residency, students explore Shakespeare’s language, themes, and characters through an active and imaginative exploration involving text work, voice, stage fight, and dance. Company artists are assigned to each participating school in teams of two or three and work with students every day from two to six hours a session. The final performance for each Residency celebrates the students’ work as actors. Leading roles are shared by many students, and major speeches are shared by the whole group. The plays are cut to accommodate the performers, but the words are not altered. Residencies are tailored to suit the individual needs of the students at each school, with collaboration by classroom teachers to support the work with writing exercises and discussions about the play and playwright.
Performance Schedule (please call the individual schools for confirmation and further information)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Lenox Middle School’s sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes will perform Thursday, January 14th at 7:00 pm. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Please call the school to order tickets (413-637-5560), or pay at the door.
The Tempest: the Hayground School’s (Bridgehampton, NY) production will include all of its students from Pre-K to 8th grades, on Thursday, January 28 at 1:00pm and 6:00pm at the Bay Street Theater in Long Island. The school’s phone number is 631-537-7068.
As You Like It: Grades seven through 12 at The Academy at Charlemont (Middle & High School) will perform Thursday, February 11, Friday, February 12, at 7:00pm and Saturday, February 13 at 2:00pm and 7:00pm in the Recital Hall at 7:00pm in Charlemont, MA Call the school at 413-339-4912 for ticket information.
There is plenty on the horizon for the Education program during the winter months, in addition to its centerpiece program, the annual New England Tour of Shakespeare, which presents Julius Caesar this season. The program will also offer a third year of special acting classes for youths looking to take the next step in their training with its Spring Riotous Youth programs. Additionally, after packed performances at the Bernstein Theatre last spring of the annual touring production of Shakespeare and the Language That Shaped A World (a fun-for-all-ages, fast paced and informative bit of Shakespeare fact, trivia and performance) it is now slated for over a dozen performances beginning March 27 in the Bernstein Theatre.
Shakespeare & Company’s Education Program is focused on bringing Shakespeare alive and into the lives of as many students and teachers as possible, through the active exploration and performance of Shakespeare’s plays.
Shakespeare & Company has one of the most extensive arts-in-education programs in the Northeast, reaching more than 50,000 students and teachers each year with innovative, socially responsive, and educationally challenging performances, workshops, and residencies.
In addition to the prestigious 2006 Coming Up Taller award, the Education Program has also received the 2005 Commonwealth Award, Massachusetts’ highest honor for excellence in the arts, sciences and the humanities. The Education Program is identified by the Arts Education Partnership, the GE Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities as a Champion of Change, and is recognized as an innovative leader in the field of integrating the arts into education. Since the program was founded in 1978, nearly one million elementary, middle, and high school students have participated.