Shakespeare & Company Announces Spring Residency Programs

The public performances culminating Shakespeare & Company's annual spring Elementary and Middle School Residency programs, featuring fourth and fifth grade students, began on April 5 with presentations of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by the fourth grade class at Williamstown Elementary School This year's Residency continues a tradition at Williamstown Elementary that stretches back more than twenty years.

For more information on the Company's Residency program and other Education Programs please contact Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware at (413) 637-1199 ext. 172 or education@shakespeare.org. The 10-session residencies include over 300 students and are led by Shakespeare & Company Education artists Kelly Galvin, Enrico Spada, Emily Ehlinger and Kiki Bertocci.
Additional Residency performances include scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream presented by Richmond Consolidated School's fifth grade on April 10 plus A Midsummer Night's Dream presented by the fifth grade class of Morris Elementary School in Lenox on April 24 at 7pM. Williamstown Elementary and Richmond Consolidated classes perform at their respective schools; Morris performs at Shakespeare & Company's Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at 70 Kemble Street in Lenox. Performances are free and open to the public. Please contact each school for additional information..

During the early part of each Residency, students explore Shakespeare's language, themes, and characters through an active and imaginative exploration involving text work, voice, stage fight, and dance. Entire classes participate in the production, and every student plays a part. Company Teaching Artists are assigned to each participating school and work with students For 10 class periods.
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 are not altered textually. 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.

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, Shakespeare in the Courts (with the Berkshire Juvenile Court),Shakespeare in our Schools: Workshops for Teachers and Actors,and the National Institute on Teaching Shakespeare, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Guided by Education Director Kevin G. Coleman and Associate Director of Education Jenna Ware, the Education Program received the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award in 2006, given by the Presidents Committee for Arts and Humanities, and in 2005 it 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.

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