Fall Festival of Shakespeare Common Classes Bring Students Together, Beginning This Week

The Fall Festival of Shakespeare is back and with it come the four Common Classes where hundreds of teenagers gather in one place to work and play together in Stage Combat, Dance and Movement, Technical Theatre and Performance Preparation. Ten different schools will be represented. Coming from the Berkshires, Pioneer Valley, eastern Massachusetts and western New York, the students will join together on four different nights to explore, collaborate, and mostly to have fun together. The Festival continues to be a unique program where schools are not in competition with each other, but rather in celebration of one another.

"I made a new best friend from Lee High School," said a Taconic Hills student. "For every single Festival show, we sat together. I saw him cry on Sunday after the Reverance. He was afraid he wasn't going to see me as much, because he might go into the Army. I hugged him and reassured him I was there no matter what he did, and we both ended up crying. Fall Fest has done so much for both of us. Looking back now, if I had never met these people, I don't know who I would be at this moment."

The first Common Class kicks off on October 8 with a focus on Stage Combat at Monument Mountain High School. The following three classes will be held at Shakespeare & Company, and include Dance on October 15, Performance on October 29, and Technical Theatre on October 21.

For more information on the Fall Festival of Shakespeare and other Education Programs, please contact Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware at (413) 637-1199 ext. 172. To observe one of the Common Classes or to arrange interviews, please contact Molly Clancy, Publicity & Playbill Director by phone at (413) 637-1199, ext. 145, or by email Mclancy@shakespeare.org.

"There is nothing quite like this program in the whole country," said Education Director Kevin G. Coleman. "The rigor with which these students invest themselves intellectually and emotionally in the plays of Shakespeare, the way they help and support each other as they learn new skills and take personal risks, the way they celebrate the efforts and courage they see in the productions from other schools, the way they learn to keep their word, and the way they learn to honor their school work, all point to the deep importance that artistic opportunities can have in students' lives and the necessity of humanity-developing experiences in their education."

About the Fall Festival of Shakespeare - The Fall Festival is the culmination of the nationally recognized program that places Shakespeare & Company Education Artists in ten local and regional schools, where they lead students in a nine-week exploration of a Shakespeare play, and end with a series of performances, first at their respective schools, and then on Shakespeare & Company's main stage, the Tina Packer Playhouse, the weekend before Thanksgiving. Built on the transformative power of Shakespeare's language and stories, the Fall Festival engages students in a personally meaningful, educationally rigorous, and dramatically compelling experience of classical theatre. Students from all ten schools will gather in a spirit of celebration to perform their plays for the public in a four-day festival at the Tina Packer Playhouse from Thursday, November 20 through Sunday, November 23.

Students are encouraged to delve into Shakespeare's works, unpack the language, immerse themselves in the characters and stories, and end with performances for public enjoyment. Daily rehearsals focus on students' personal responses to the text, the language and the dramatic situations. Students also have the opportunity to explore stage management, dramaturgy, marketing and publicity, costuming and the technical aspects of their production under other mentors from Shakespeare & Company staff. Fall Festival participants can learn about and work with Shakespeare & Company staff on set, props, lighting, sound and costume design to help create the unique design for each play.

The ten participating schools of 2014 include: Lee High School, Lenox Memorial High School, Taconic High School, Mount Greylock Regional High School, North Andover High School, Mount Everett Regional High School, Chatham High School (New York), Taconic Hills Regional High School (New York), Springfield Central High School and Monument Mountain Regional High School.

"Fall Festival joins students from all different peer groups, socioeconomic backgrounds, and various levels of academic achievement," said Fall Festival parent and high school Guidance Department Chair, Tara Romeo. "This is a cohesive group of students that would not otherwise be found sitting together at lunch or hanging out after school. No other program that I have seen has eclipsed social stigmas and instilled more acceptance and kindness to others than the Fall Festival, not to mention learning Shakespeare along the way. What better stories to teach students about themselves and the human condition."

Director of Education Kevin G. Coleman - Coleman is a founding member of Shakespeare & Company. He teaches text analysis, acting, stage combat and clown. He has been a guest teacher or director at MIT, Harvard, LSU, Stanford, Queensland Univ. of Technology - Brisbane, Lincoln Center, both Stratfords, the Folger Library, and the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, UK. Kevin is the Theatre Director for the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge where he has directed over 30 productions. He holds degrees from St. Louis University and NYU.

About the Education Program - Guided by Director of Education Kevin G. Coleman and Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware, the Company's award-winning Education Program is one of the most extensive theatre-in-education programs in the Northeast. The Education Program, since its inception in 1978, has reached over a million students with innovative performances, workshops and residencies including: The New England Tour of Shakespeare, the Fall Festival of Shakespeare, Shakespeare & Young Company, Riotous Youth, Shakespeare in the Courts (with the Berkshire Juvenile Court), and ProDev Workshops for Teachers, Teaching Artists and Directors. For the eleventh consecutive year, the New England Tour was generously supported by a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts through Arts Midwest, Shakespeare in American Communities initiative, administrated by NEA's national program.

The Education program received the Commonwealth Award, the highest award for excellence in the arts, sciences, and humanities given by the state of Massachusetts, and was also the subject of the two-year study by Harvard University's Graduate School of Education (Project Zero), which recommended national replication. Most recently recognized by a 2013 Massachusetts House of Representatives Resolution, the Education program has been identified by the Arts Education Partnership and the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities as a Champion of Change. The Education Program is supported in part by grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council and its Youth Reach Initiative, the Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, Deborah and Bill Ryan, Jeffrey Konowitch and Wendy Laurin, Berkshire Life Insurance Co., A Guardian Corporation, The Feigenbaum Foundation, The Charles Hall Foundation, The Red Lion Inn, Country Curtains, Berkshire Bank, the Cultural Councils of Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, Monterey, New Marlboro, North Andover, Pittsfield, Sheffield, Springfield, Stockbridge and Richmond, and a coalition of businesses, families, and individuals.

About Shakespeare & Company - Located in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Shakespeare & Company is one of the largest Shakespeare Festivals in the country. Founded in 1978 by Tina Packer, the organization attracts more than 60,000 patrons annually, with a core of over 150 artists and more than 30 full-time staff. The Company develops and performs Shakespeare, classics, contemporary, and new plays of social and political significance, generating opportunities for collaboration between actors, directors and designers of all races, nationalities and backgrounds. Shakespeare & Company embraces the core values of Shakespeare's work: collaboration, commitment to language, visceral experience and classical ideals, expressed with physical prowess and an embodied contemporary voice.

The Company offers one of the most extensive actor training programs by a regional theatre in the country, where professionals from all over the world come to train with the organization known for its original, in-depth, classical training and performance methods. Shakespeare & Company is also home to an award-winning and nationally recognized Education program, one of the largest in the Northeast; it reaches more than 45,000 students annually with innovative performances, workshops and residencies. For more information, visit www.shakespeare.org.

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