Shakespeare & Company's Weekend Acting Intensive is Coming To NYC This November

Shakespeare & Company's Center for Actor Training will host its NYC Weekend Intensive for professional actors and theater students from Friday, November 8 through Sunday, November 10.

Located in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, this intensive is designed for theater professionals as well as acting students who would like to increase their confidence in performing Shakespeare. Led by the Center for Actor Training's Director Sheila Bandyopadhyay and veteran faculty member Andrew Borthwick-Leslie, it also offers an immersive introduction to Shakespeare & Company's Actor Training aesthetic.

Borthwick-Leslie, a teacher, actor, and director with Shakespeare & Company for more than 20 years, said he enjoys watching participants make new connections, to both people and concepts, during the NYC Weekend Intensive - all within a relatively short period.

"A weekend intensive with Shakespeare & Company is a great opportunity to make an exciting shift in your approach to classical text and your relationship to your instrument," he said. "I love teaching them because of how quickly artists can form an encouraging community - and as a New Yorker, I particularly love the unique and vibrant community that this inspires."

Throughout the weekend, voice, movement, and monologue work are integrated, with attention paid to identifying and offering skills specific to each participant's needs. Shakespeare's language is further explored through dynamic group and individual exercises.

Shakespeare & Company's Weekend Intensives are held year-round in cities across the U.S., including San Jose, Calif., Lenox, Mass., and Chicago, Ill., to name a few.

For more information or to apply, visit shakespeare.org/actor-training or call 413.637.1199, ext. 114. Student, BIPOC, alumni, and union discounts are available.

Shakespeare & Company's Center for Actor Training

The aesthetic of Shakespeare & Company was devised by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer, Founding Director of Training Kristin Linklater, and a cadre of expert teachers.The Center for Actor Training's approach is continually investigated, redefined, and reinvigorated, and welcomes actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world to work with the Company's faculty.

Sheila Bandyopadhyay (she/her)

Sheila Bandyopadhyay is the Director of Training for Shakespeare & Company, leading its Center for Actor Training. A director, deviser, movement specialist, Alexander Technique, and yoga teacher, Bandyopadhyay has been part of the faculty at Shakespeare & Company since 2007 and most recently was seen as Puck/Starveling in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 2023. Her Movement Direction credits include Macbeth (The Humanist Project); Mother Courage and her Children, The Cherry Orchard (American Academy of Dramatic Arts Company); Hamlet, Measure for Measure (NYU Gallatin), and Twelfth Night (FSU Conservatory/Asolo Rep). She has directed shows in New York at the Brick, the United Solo Festival (Theater Row), the Tank, the Women in Theater Festival (the Gural), the West End Theater, and the 72nd St Theater Lab. Bandyopadhyay's favorite roles include Stephano in The Tempest (Stages on the Sound), Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project), and Bianca/Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew (Tempest Ladies). She is a proud member of the Humanist Project and a sponsored artist with Leviathan Lab.

Andrew Borthwick-Leslie (he/him)

Andrew Borthwick-Leslie is a Company Artist with Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., where he has taught, directed, and acted for more than 20 years. He is also the co-Artistic Director of The Humanist Project in New York City. He has taught acting and voice at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Emerson College, DeSales University, and the University of Maryland among others. Andrew has run workshops for the Center for Renaissance Studies, the American Bar Association, the New England Homeless Veterans Shelter, and many more. He has directed, devised, or assisted on over fifty productions - from Cymbeline to Perestroika. Most recently he directed Love's Labour's Lost and Merchant of Venice for the Shakespeare Forum at the Gym at Judson in Washington Square, Macbeth and Frances Goes to War for The Humanist Project, and Double Falsehood for the Letter of Marque Theater Company.

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