9th Annual Spring Session Performances at Shakespeare & Young Company02:08PM / Wednesday, May 06, 2009
LENOX, Mass. - Shakespeare & Young Company, some of the youngest members of Shakespeare & Company, will ignite the stage of Founders’ Theatre with its 9th annual Spring Session performances. Shakespeare & Young Company, a troupe of actors aged 16 to 20 years old, presents its final compilation of scenes in two performances this weekend.
Performances are at 7pm on Saturday, May 9 and Sunday, May 10. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students, and available on the day of show or in advance from the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org.
Shakespeare & Young Company is headed by Youth Programs Director Jonathan Croy and co-directed with Company actor Michael F. Toomey and involves up to 25 participants who tackle scenes, rather than a full production, which have been culled from several of Shakespeare’s plays, and revolve around a particular theme.
The upcoming performances feature Pants, a specially compilation of scenes from Twelfth Night and As You Like It, highlighting the travails of tenacious, love-struck women who dress up as men to pursue the men they love. Two other pieces combine Shakespeare’s words with historical works: one looking at the Trojan War through Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida as well as accounts from The Iliad, Sophocles and Euripides; and another based on the life of Joan of Arc taken from Henry VI, Part 1 and historical documents. Audiences will also be delighted with some outrageous fun with scenes from The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The performances are directed by Croy and Toomey, with Croy moving on the direct the Company’s first Founders’ production of Twelfth Night this season, as well as acting in Othello alongside Toomey. Visit www.shakespeare.org for the entire listing of plays and show times for the 2009/2010 season.
Costumes are designed by Jim Day, Mary Boyce, and Dana Gribe, with stitching assistance by Deleah Elling and Kadie Midlam. Technical Direction by Bob Brown. Technical coordination, props, and set design executed by Ian Guzzone and Christian Schmidt. Sound by Mike Pfieffer.
The Spring Session of S&YCo, runs for 13 weeks and is an after-school program modeled on the Summer Session of Shakespeare & Young Company, founded in 1991. Past participants have continued to train with the Company, performing in Mainstage productions and participating in the Summer Training Institute and directing in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare. S&YCo alumni Jacqueline Antonson, Grant Haywood, Lydia Barnett-Mulligan and Julie Webster all appeared in The Servant of Two Masters on the Rose Footprint in 2006; Meg O’Connor, who participated in the first year of SY&Co is now the Director of S&YCo; and Jake Elitzer, Gillian and Alex Hurst all appeared in last season’s hit Scapin.
The Company’s award-winning Education Program is one of the most extensive theatre-in-education programs in the Northeast, and has reached over a million students since 1978 with innovative performances, workshops, and residencies including The New England Tour of Shakespeare, the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, Shakespeare & Young Company, Riotous Youth, the Shakespeare in the Courts (with the Berkshire Juvenile Court), Shakespeare in our Schools: Workshops for Teachers and Actors, and the National Instituted on Teaching Shakespeare.
Guided by Education Director Kevin G. Coleman and Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware, education artists and teachers, educators continue to develop and fine-tune their programs to enhance and complement curricular activities in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country. The Education Program recently received the prestigious Distinguished Arts Educator Award, and the coveted 2006 Coming Up Taller Award presented by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in 2007, and in 2005 it also received the Commonwealth Award, the highest award for excellence in the arts, sciences and humanities given by the state of Massachusetts. It was also the subject of an in-depth, two-year study by Harvard University’s Project Zero which recommended national replication. The Education Program has been identified by the Arts Education Partnership and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities as a Champion of Change.
The 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 The Program is also 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 arts-in-education programs receive major support from The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, Legacy banks Foundation, Berkshire Bank Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and its local cultural councils, Country Curtains and The Red Lion Inn, and many other local corporations, private foundations, and individuals. |
