Delaware Shakespeare (formerly known as "Delaware Shakespeare Festival") is an outdoor Shakespeare festival that takes place during the summer months at Rockwood Park located in the city of Wilmington, Delaware. The mission of the Delaware Shakespeare is to create professional theatre and educational programs in order to further the understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's works for the residents and friends of the State of Delaware.
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Summer Festival at Archmere Academy
Summer Festival at Rockwood Park:
Community Tour
Originally piloted in 2004, the Shakespeare, Then, Now and Always program is an interactive seminar for local high school students. One of the Festival's Shakespearean scholars visits local high school classrooms to work with students on reading, speaking and understanding the works of the Bard.
Following the performance, a panel of DSF scholars and actors meet with the participants to review the themes of the play, discuss the world of Shakespeare and find connections to the modern world and to their own lives.
The Delaware Shakespeare Festival was founded in 2003 by Molly Cahill and Greg Robleto and performed for three years on the grounds of or in the auditorium at Archmere Academy in Claymont. In 2006, the Festival moving to its current outdoor only location in Rockwood Park in Wilmington. In 2011, the Festival began taking productions on tour to other destinations in Delaware, starting with a free showing of the play at The Freeman Stage at Bayside in Fenwick Island.
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) was formed in 1996 by artistic director Steven Maler and associate Joan Moynagh to bring free, outdoor Shakespeare to the people of the city of Boston. Since 1996, CSC has produced one full Shakespeare production each summer starting with A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1996 at Copley Square. All subsequent productions have taken place in Boston Common, first at the Parkman Bandstand and now at the Parade Ground. In addition to the annual Boston Common productions, CSC presents several free play-reading events during the year: Theatre in the Rough, Shakespeare and Law, as well as Shakespeare and Leadership. CSC has actor-training programs for both high school students and pre-professional actors with its Summer Academy. Throughout the year, CSC partners with area high schools and Boys & Girls Clubs to provide in and after-school theater activities to inner-city youth. In 2013, CSC became the theatre in residence at Babson College.
Bard on the Beach is Western Canada's largest professional Shakespeare festival. The theatre festival runs annually from early June through September in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The festival is produced by Bard on the Beach Theatre Society whose mandate is to provide Vancouver residents and tourists with affordable, accessible Shakespearean productions of the finest quality. In addition to the annual summer festival, the Society runs a number of year-round theatre education and training initiatives for both the artistic community and the general community at large. Bard on the Beach celebrated its 30th anniversary season in 2019.
The Southern Shakespeare Festival is an annual festival in Tallahassee, Florida organized by the Southern Shakespeare Company. The festival's first incarnation existed from 1995 to 2000. In 2012, a group of scholars saw an opportunity to revive the free outdoor festival at the award-winning Cascades Park.
The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) is a theatre company based in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 2002, by Ian Gallanar and Heidi Busch-Gallanar, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has grown into one of the twenty largest Shakespeare theaters in the United States under the leadership of Founding Artistic Director Ian Gallanar and Managing Director Lesley Malin. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has performance spaces in Baltimore and Elliott City, Maryland. Its main indoor space, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company Theater opened in 2014 after a $7M renovation of the Mercantile Bank Building, a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, The Studio, is located next door on the fourth floor of the Merchants Club space and is used for educational programs, rehearsals and as an alternate performance space for CSC. They continue to perform outdoor every summer at the Patapsco Female Institute Historic Park in Ellicott City, Maryland.
In 1991 the Shakespeare Theatre Company, under Artistic Director Michael Kahn, initiated its annual Free For All performances in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park. Each year the Company performed a show free to the public, usually from a previous season. In 2009 the Free For All was moved indoors to Sidney Harman Hall, one of two theatres operated by STC in downtown D.C. This more accessible location allowed STC to perform rain or shine, offer matinees, maintain the artistic excellence of the production and increase the overall number of Free For All performances. Plans for future productions have been put on hold since the COVID pandemic began in 2020.
The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is an annual Shakespearean theatre festival in Philadelphia. Every year, The Festival produces two or three productions of Shakespeare's plays. Starting out as the Red Heel Theatre in 1989, and changing name and purpose in 1993, The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is now the region's only theatre devoted entirely to Shakespeare's works. In 2008/9, they engaged in intensive planning with the board of directors and cultural and community leaders and decided to re-brand and rename the company to better reflect their programming. The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre now has several programs for adults and students including a lecture series featuring world-renowned Shakespeare scholars, Shakespeare School Tour which also tours in schools, and a Classical Acting Academy providing early career actors with intense classical training culminating in a free summer Shakespeare play for the public.
The Aquila Theatre was founded in London in 1991 by Peter Meineck and has been based in New York City since 1999. Aquila's mission is to bring the greatest theatrical works to the greatest number and presents a regular season of plays in New York and at international festivals. Education programming is an important component of Aquila's mission. The Shakespeare Leaders is a bold and innovative program in Harlem, through which students learn and perform Shakespeare. Aquila provides access for people in under-served urban and rural communities, touring to around seventy American towns and cities a year. Aquila is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation.
The Shakespeare by the Sea Festival is an annual event that runs throughout the months of July and August in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada that presents outdoor productions of the plays of William Shakespeare, as well as pieces related to the province and culture.
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (HVSF) is a non-profit professional theater company based in Garrison, New York. The festival runs a roughly fourteen-week repertory season each year, operating under a large open-air theater tent. Its productions attract a total audience of about 50,000 from the Hudson Valley, New York City, and 40 US states.
Shakespeare in Delaware Park is one of the largest free outdoor Shakespeare festivals in the country which takes place during summer months in Delaware Park located in the city of Buffalo, New York. The festival attracts about 40,000 audience members each year.
The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival (PSF) is a professional theatre company in residence at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania and the official Shakespeare Festival of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The Nashville Shakespeare Festival is a Shakespeare festival in Nashville, Tennessee.
Shakespeare by the Sea is a nonprofit organization that was launched in 1998 by Producing Artistic Director Lisa Coffi. Shakespeare by the Sea offers a free repertory season that runs for ten weeks throughout Los Angeles and Orange County. All performances are admission free. Each summer, the company tours about 20 cities for as many as 40 performances.
Shakespeare in the Park is a term for outdoor festivals featuring productions of William Shakespeare's plays. The term originated with the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City's Central Park, originally created by Joseph Papp. This concept has been adapted by many theatre companies, and over time, this name has expanded to encompass outdoor theatre productions of the playwright's works performed all over the world.
Georgia Shakespeare was a professional, not-for-profit theatre company located in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States on the campus of Oglethorpe University from 1985-2014. Georgia Shakespeare produced three plays annually, primarily between June and November. Twelve educational programs were developed in the history of Georgia Shakespeare. These programs included "The High School Tour", a "High School Acting Competition", "Camp Shakespeare", a "High School Conservatory", a "No Fear Shakespeare" training program for educators, after school residencies, school tours, student matinees, classes for professionals, and in-school workshops. At its peak, it welcomed 60,000 patrons annually to its performances.
The New Swan Theater is an outdoor, portable theater that is assembled and disassembled each summer as part of New Swan Shakespeare Festival, the annual Shakespeare festival at the University of California, Irvine. It is a reduced-size replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
The Bonn University Shakespeare Company e.V. (BUSC) is an independent theatre company based at the University of Bonn, Germany. It was founded by students of the Department of English, American, and Celtic Studies.
The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (SCLA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) theatre company based in Los Angeles, California, that stages outdoor and indoor Shakespeare plays and produces the Simply Shakespeare series of benefit readings around Los Angeles. The Center also provides arts-based opportunities for veterans and at-risk youth.