Shakespeare & Company's Northeast Regional Tour Hits The Road

Shakespeare & Company's Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare is now on the road, performing for schools and community centers throughout the Northeast. This year, the Company's Tour brings two Shakespeare productions, Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew, to over 20,000 students. The Tour visits 75 schools throughout the Northeast in ten different states including; Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

During the Northeast Regional Tour, Actor/Education Artists travel to middle and high schools, colleges, and performance venues conducting workshops and performing 90-minute productions of Shakespeare's plays. These fully produced performances emphasize Shakespeare's language, dramatic action, the vital relationship between the actors and the audience, and always include a talk back with the audience.

"Our goal is to bring Shakespeare's plays alive so that they can speak to our audiences across time, and illuminate our own world and lives," said Northeast Tour Co-Director Kelly Galvin. "In turn we find that students connect deeply to these stories and illuminate the plays for us with their insights. The Taming of the Shrew is an outrageously funny and provocative look at power, wealth, love, and relationships. I think that students will have a lot to say about the questions the play provokes."

Each play features a six-member cast who take on multiple roles. The 2019 tour cast includes: Jordan Mann (NYU Tisch and Masters in Classical Acting from LAMDA), Caitlin Kraft (S&Co's 2018 Northeast Tour of Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream), Daniel Light (Recent Graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts), Kirsten Peacock (S&Co's 2018 Northeast Tour of Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream), Nick Nudler (Cape Rep's Shakespeare in Love and CT Repertory Theatre's As You Like It), and Dara Brown (Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre's Amazing Grace and The Secret Garden). The productions are directed by Kelly Galvin (The Taming of the Shrew) and Tom Jaeger (Hamlet), with Costume Design by Govane Lohbauer and Production Design by Devon Drohan.

Shakespeare & Company's Tour also performs both shows for local schools on their Lenox campus in the Tina Packer Playhouse. The Taming of the Shrew has school performances on Monday, March 4th and Monday, April 8th, and Hamlet has performance dates on Monday, March 25th and Monday, April 22nd. For more information about the Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare and how to bring it to your school, please contact Shakespeare & Company's Tour Coordinator Brittney Holland at (413) 637-1199 ext. 106 or education@shakespeare.org.

Shakespeare & Company's Education Programs are supported in part by grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council Youth Reach Initiative, the Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, the Chervenak-Nunalle Foundation, The Feigenbaum Foundation, The Charles H. Hall Foundation, the Cultural Councils supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a stage agency of Lee, Lenox, Northern Berkshire, Pittsfield, Sheffield, Springfield, Tyringham, and New Marlborough; and a coalition of local businesses, families, and individuals