Second year of Shakespeare & Company's Conservatory set to open
Lenox — Shakespeare & Company is pleased to announce the second year of its Conservatory program, which begins September 15. Twelve promising actors have been chosen to participate in this 13-week program of professional actor training, which culminates in a public performance of Twelfth Night in the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on December 12 and 13.Led by senior S&Co. artists and teachers under the direction of Associate Director of Training Dave Demke, the Conservatory trains actors in the specialized techniques the Company has developed over its 31 years. The areas of work include Structure of the Verse, Shakespeare Scholarship, The First Folio, The Art of Rhetoric, Personal Connection, Linklater Voice Technique, Clown, Neutral Mask, Fight, Movement, and Elizabethan Dance. The Conservatory culminates in a 90-minute exploration of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the Company’s Founders’ Theatre in which the participants will be able to utilize the techniques on which they’ve been working for a live audience..
Similar in scope to an MFA program, the Conservatory provides actors with opportunities to apply their training in “real world” scenarios. In addition to the Twelfth Night project, participants will be closely involved in the Education Department’s Fall Festival of Shakespeare.
“The Conservatory was designed to take our training farther and deeper, providing the actors with real theatre-world scenarios, going seamlessly from workshop floor onto the stage, from breakthrough to performance,” says Dave Demke, Associate Director of Training and coordinator of the program. “By adding components like involvement in the Fall Festival, a public performance as the final project, and classes in areas like audition technique and stage fight proficiencies, the participants will be well prepared to begin and continue their careers in professional theatre. The Conservatory’s first year was a great success, and this year will definitely build on that success.
Over the past 30 years, Shakespeare & Company has had a profound impact on the way Shakespeare is studied in America through its distinct exploration of the actor/audience relationship, and the actors’ personal connection to the text. Shakespeare & Company training uniquely integrates the actor’s voice, body, mind and spirit, placing them at the center of the theatrical event.
Training workshops at S&Co. began in 1978 when Tina Packer, Dennis Krausnick, master voice coach Kristin Linklater, movement choreographer John Broome, fight choreographer B.H. Barry, and many others created a blueprint for approximately 40 Month-Long Training Intensives to be hosted by Shakespeare & Company over the next quarter century. Along with the new Conservatory program the Company also offers Weekend Intensives, Week-Long Text Intensives, Week-Long Rhetoric classes, Fight and Text Workshops, and Clown Workshops. Actors, directors, and writers from all over the world come to work with the Company, training not only their voices and bodies, but delving deeply into their imaginations, intellects, and emotional lives. Past training participants include Karen Allen, Lauren Ambrose, Gillian Barge, Jennifer Grant, Karen Grassle, Joe Morton, Andie MacDowell, Bronson Pinchot, Anna Deavere Smith, Keanu Reeves, Alicia Silverstone, Diana Quick, Courtney Vance, Sigourney Weaver, and Raquel Welch.
