Our Company
Born in England, Packer journeyed to the U.S. in the early 1970s with the idea of creating a theater company that merged the power suits of British actors and American actors: the spoken word and the physical body.
From 1978 to 2000, Shakespeare & Company was located at The Mount, the historic home of Edith Wharton. Its current home in Lenox, Mass., was purchased in April 2000. This large, beautiful property is home to the Company’s administrative offices, housing, rehearsal spaces, and four theaters: the Tina Packer Playhouse, the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, the Roman Garden Theatre, and the Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheatre, a 500-seat outdoor amphitheater constructed in Summer 2021 and re-dedicated in Summer 2023.
The Company develops and performs Shakespeare’s words as well as other classic plays, contemporary works, and those of social and political significance, and embraces the core values of Shakespeare’s work: collaboration, commitment to language, visceral experience, and classical ideals expressed with physical prowess and an embodied contemporary voice.
Shakespeare & Company strives to generate opportunities for partnership between actors, directors, and designers of all races, nationalities, and backgrounds, offering one of the most extensive actor training programs in the country. The Center for Actor Training welcomes professionals from all over the world to train with original, in-depth, classical training and performance methods.
Our Mission
The mission of Shakespeare & Company is to deliver a sustainable, integrated, and vital program of Performance, Training, and Education for the audience, the artist, the Company, and the community. We embrace the classical ideals and visceral experience of Shakespeare’s work: collaboration, commitment to language, physical prowess and the embodied voice.
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