Tennessee Shakespeare Company Kicks Off Fourth Year of ROMEO AND JULIET PROJECT

Tennessee Shakespeare Company has begun its nationally-recognized, four-part performance and in-school residency The Romeo and Juliet Projectin the Memphis area this week, starting with Germantown High School and all of its 530 Freshmen.

The Project, now in its fourth year, brings a cast of eight professional actor-teachers into each Language Arts classroom at a participating school. Students are guided by the actors to live the play's urgent tragedy of young love amidst rage, experiencing its relevant story while ensuring that participating Freshmen have a first exposure to Shakespeare that is active, rich, and rewarding.

As the teenagers in the play face armed violence, students discover positive actions available to them in their own lives in the face of real conflict. The Residency concludes with an intimate performance by the actor-teachers of Romeo and Juliet, which encourages student participation.

By the end of March, The Romeo and Juliet Project will have performed the play 44 times in 27 Memphis area schools, and will have taught the Residency in 342 classroom visits in 11 schools. At least 4,360 high school Freshmen will be reached and positively affected by The Romeo and Juliet Project. That figure represents 34% of all Freshmen in the Shelby County Schools system.
Student post-Project assessments have recorded a 20% increase in students' compassion as a result of their inclusion in The Romeo and Juliet Project, as well as a full letter grade increase, on average, in Language Arts classes.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company's production of Romeo and Juliet and The Romeo and Juliet Project are part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.

Additional funding is provided by individual contributions to TSC's Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, charged with bringing as many children as possible to live, professional Shakespeare performance and interactive study.
The Romeo and Juliet Project, created and directed by TSC Education Director Stephanie Shine and managed by Education Manager Slade Kyle, is provided free of charge to participating schools and students.

"Memphis Mayor AC Wharton challenged us to discover a way for the arts to activate positive social change while simultaneously heightening academic success," says TSC founder and producing artistic director Dan McCleary. "That was four years ago. We have now created an interactive, in-classroom curriculum that is meeting both challenges successfully, gaining both student and teacher momentum in county-wide schools, and hopefully will become a model for replication around the United States. The student need in our community is desperate. To their credit, the county school system and our school administrators recognize this and have welcomed Tennessee Shakespeare Company into breach with them. Romeo and Juliet speaks directly to our childrens' daily decision-making in an environment where armed violence, truancy, homelessness, high school drop-out rates, and poverty are at some of the highest levels in the country. The Romeo and Juliet Projectis changing young lives for the better. We are very proud of this, and hopeful."

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