Actors’ Shakespeare Project

Specialties

The Actors’ Shakespeare Project believes Shakespeare’s words are urgently relevant to our times. Working as an ensemble of resident company members, we bring these words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of our actors, audiences and neighborhoods. We do this through creative projects, including intimate productions and outreach programs that are informed by the spaces in which they happen. These projects inspire civic dialogue, build relationships between people, strengthen communities, and reveal something about what it means to be human here and now.

History

Established in 2004.

Our goal is to make Shakespeare not just accessible and relevant to modern audiences but essential to them. Shakespeare’s dramas are often mistaken for large-​scale pageants, but in truth, they are intimate struggles among very human people for love, influence and power. Stripped of all that is extraneous, our productions focus on language, acting and the simple power of the story. Our actors are free to express the full depth and breadth of these timeless plays as simply, clearly, and movingly as possible. And our actors are the best in the business.

Meet the Business Owner

William S.

Business Owner

William Shakespeare was born on the 23^rd of April, 1564. His parents, John Shakespeare and Mary Ardan, had 8 other children though 2 died at birth. He was born in Stratford-​upon-​Avon, but lived in England most of his life.

Unlike other prodigies of the earlier times, he hasn’t had too much of his early life recorded, and didn’t suggest any prowess in his profession until he actually made it his occupation in adulthood. He married in November, 1582 to Anne Hathaway, with whom he had 3 children.

He wrote poetry (and, of course, plays) for a long period of time, making 37 plays exactly. Historic ones, such as King Henry IV, comedic plays, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, tragedies, such as Hamlet and romances, such as Romeo and Juliet. In his plays, he invented many words, and reinvented some, but shorter like o’er, and ’tis.

He was also famous for being an actor and a school teacher throughout his life, which tragically ended on his 52^nd birthday.