Arden Institute

EXAMINE. REFLECT. ANALYZE. Lead.

Welcome to The Arden Institute

When truth is spoken, the world shifts.

Dear Colleagues,

Ongoing intellectual and moral renewal is essential for responsible citizenship and imaginative leadership. In support of this principle, The Arden Institute hosts a range of programs that uniquely merge group dialogue and theatre. An arm of Shakespeare & Company – the internationally renowned performance and education company, The Arden Institute explores universal questions that are rooted in contemporary thought and lie at the heart of Shakespeare’s work:

What does it mean to be alive?
How should we act?
What must I do?

These questions are asked from political, psychological, philosophical, poetical and personal points of view.

The Institute’s activity centers around four distinctly different Arden Seminars, held on residential weekends across the year. Owing to its Radcliffe origin (as Intellectual Renewal for Leaders, 1998-2002), the program continues to focus on women, although it now also includes men. Participants are invited to the seminars by nomination only and come from varied backgrounds, interests and professional realms. The personal narratives of those in the room enhance moderated, intense deliberations provoked by readings sent to participants in advance. The exchange of ideas and experience ensures that individuals get to know one another in meaningful conversation, and provides a fertile environment to analyze new intellectual, cultural and ethical frameworks for staging personal action.

Our seminars are purposefully designed to connect the past, the present and the body politic. To perceive fresh ways of looking at the world, members explore fundamental truths and examine questions, qualities and attributes of human nature as construed by history’s most profound thinkers, then bring them to modern relevance and application by merging dialogue and the theatre experience, creating new intellectual frameworks to function in contemporary life.

The Arden Seminars encourage spirited debate, intense discussion, rhetorical exercise and experimentation. They cover a range of topics, relating classical thought to modern attitudes, and provide a heightened awareness about the real world. I invite and encourage you to explore our programs, experience our seminars and become an agent of change.

Sincerely,
Tamar March Ph.D.
Founder and Director, The Arden Institute

If you're interested in attending our seminars, please contact Catherine Wheeler, cwheeler@shakespeare.org,
413-637-1199 ext 140