Shakespeare & Company

Training Center Takes Intensives on the Road

Shakespeare & Company's Center for Actor Training is now accepting applications for Weekend Intensives taking place across the continent this fall and winter. The upcoming workshops will be conducted in different cities in the United States and Canada, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, and Toronto.

“In discovering Shakespeare and Company's Center for Actor Training, I found a creative home," 2012 Training alumna Jami Witt was quoted in a company press release. “I continue to return to keep my voice and body tuned, my mind enlightened, and my heart inspired.”

Led by senior Shakespeare & Company faculty, the workshops, also known as “intensives,” are designed to meet the needs of actors who seek an introduction to Shakespeare & Company's training methods or an opportunity to reawaken and revitalize their relationship to William Shakespeare's text. Workshops focus on specific acting tools required for Shakespearean performance. The format is a condensed version of the Company's more extensive Month-Long Intensive, which runs during the winter at the theater company's campus in Lenox, Massachusetts.

“Every actor's secret desire is an extraordinary chance to dip a toe into the Shakespeare text and let the fear evaporate into pleasure,” Director of Training Dennis Krausnick said in the press release. “The Weekend Intensives offer actors, both new to the program as well as program alumni, to experience the Shakespeare & Company Training without having to travel a great distance from home, but not lose the in-depth learning that we offer in our other training intensives.”

Workshops begin with an evening class that includes an introduction to Shakespeare & Company's aesthetic and an opportunity for the actors to shift gears and focus on their work through a series of exercises involving voice, body, and memory work. Day two focuses on the actor's individual voice and experiences, which are incorporated into a monologue that the actor has prepared. Day three moves more vigorously through voice and bodywork, with the actors reconnecting with Shakespeare's text, revisiting their monologues in First Folio format, and exploring how the structure of the verse might influence character and performance. Krausnick will lead each of these three events.
Workshops are scheduled for the following cities:

• Los Angeles: Nov. 11–13, 2016, and March 17–19, 2017
• Toronto: Nov. 18–20, 2016
• Boston: Dec. 9–11, 2016
• San Francisco : Feb. 24–26, 2017
• Washington, D.C.: Dates TBA
• New York City: Dates TBA

Typically, classes will run Friday 7–10 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. –10 p.m., and Sunday 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Workshops are limited to 12 participants, and the cost for each participant is $300.

For applications or more information on the Weekend Intensives, please contact the Training Office at 413-637-1199 x114, email training@shakespeare.org. or visit shakespeare.org/training.

Located in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Shakespeare & Company is one of the largest Shakespeare Festivals in the country. Founded in 1978, the organization attracts tens of thousands of patrons annually. The Company is also home to an internationally renowned Center for Actor Training, as well as a nationally renowned and an award-winning Education Program.

November 3, 2016

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