Tina Packer, Founder of Shakespeare & Company, Dies at 87
LENOX, Mass. — The doyenne of Shakespeare's plays, Tina Packer, died Friday at the age of 87.
Shakespeare & Company, which Packer co-founded in 1978, made the announcement Saturday on its Facebook page.
"It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Packer, Shakespeare & Company's founding artistic director and acclaimed director, actor, writer, and teacher," the company said on its post and in a press release.
Packer, who retired as the theater company's artistic director in 2009, had directed all of Shakespeare's plays, some several times, acted in eight of them, and taught the whole canon at more than 30 colleges, including Harvard. She continued to direct, teach, and advocate for the company until her passing.
At Columbia University, she taught in the master of business administration program for four years, resulting in the publication of "Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management with Deming Professor John Whitney" for Simon and Schuster. For Scholastic, she wrote "Tales from Shakespeare," a children's book and recipient of the Parent's Gold Medal Award.
Most recently her book "Women of Will" was published by Knopf and she had been performing "Women of Will" with Nigel Gore, in New York, Mexico, England, The Hague, China, and across the United States. She's the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Commonwealth Award.
"Our hearts are heavy with the passing of Tina Packer, a fiery force of nature with an indomitable spirit," said Artistic Director Allyn Burrows. "Tina affected everyone she encountered with her warmth, generosity, wit, and insatiable curiosity. She delighted in people's stories, and reached into their hearts with tender humanity. The world was her stage, and she furthered the Berkshires as a destination for the imagination.
"Tina had so much life in her that it's hard to think of it going anywhere but to be held in all of us."
Before she founded Shakespeare & Company with a cadre of theater artists, she began her career in her 20s with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, and later worked at the Royal Court and Aldwych theatres in London, Leicester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and other regional theaters, as well as for BBC and ITV television.
The company began as a teaching and performing summer theater housed at The Mount in Lenox. It's work with younger students would continue over the past three decades as the annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare, bringing the Bard to high schools across the region. Packer's playhouse also brought numerous Hollywood and Broadway luminaries to Lenox for Shakespeare workshops and productions.
Packer would oversee the company's move to a permanent location to 70 Kemble St., the site of the former National Music Foundation, in 2000, and the expansion of its programming.
Among her many recognitions was a Lifetime Achievement Award by The Shakespeare Theatre Association in 2019, and the naming of the Tina Packer Playhouse in 2023.
Information regarding memorial services will be offered in the coming days.
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