In-person Specialized Workshops
programme Dates
January 3 to 29, 2023
Arrival: Monday, January 2 Departure: Monday, January 30
Tuition Fees
$4,875 USD
Early payment discount: Pay the full tuition by October 15 and save $600.
The Center for Actor Training typically offers a variety of specialized workshops throughout the year exploring a full range of disciplines including rhetoric, wit, clown, fight, voice, movement, public speaking, and more. Go here for more details on our online programming.
Devising Shakespeare: Creating New Work From Old Wit
Calling all actors, creators, directors, physical theatre artists, and Shakespeare enthusiasts! This weekend-long laboratory is an opportunity for those seeking to explore or enhance their skills as generative actor/creators using Shakespeare as the source material. Led by Director of Training Sheila Bandyopadhyay, a longtime theater devisor and former Head of the Dell’Arte International Physical Theatre program, this workshop offers a unique platform for creative minds to come together and experiment with tools for crafting new work that explodes language into physical action and form.
The workshop will include ensemble exploration, movement, dissection of text, and creative prompts to adapt heightened language and dramatic narrative into new pieces. The participants in this workshop will form a temporary company who will be offered multiple tools for deconstructing and reconstructing material from a single Shakespeare play. At the conclusion of the weekend, a short showcase of works in progress will be open to friends, family, and the public.
While no previous experience with devising is necessary, an interest in physical performance is strongly recommended.
FACULTY: Sheila Bandyopadhyay
DATES: Friday July 11, 2025: 4 pm – 8 pm
Saturday July 12, 2025: 10 am – 6 pm
Sunday July 13, 2025: 10 am – 2 pm
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus, Lenox, MA
TUITION: $375 USD**
BIPOC ARTIST and STUDENT TUITION: $325
**Alumni (15%) and union (10%) discounts available. Email training@shakespeare.org for details.
HOUSING: A limited amount of on-campus housing is available for an additional $75/night. First come, first-serve. Housing is apartment-style living; private bedroom with shared bathrooms, kitchen, and living room.
PLEASE NOTE: All participants are encouraged to have the most recent COVID-19 vaccine one is eligible for and will be asked to self-assess for any illness symptoms, including fever, upon arrival. The most recent Covid-19 vaccine dose made available in Fall 2024 is required to stay in Shakespeare & Company housing.
Click here to apply.
9-Day Intensive: The Foundation
Inspired by the content of our signature Month-long Intensive, this workshop is an immersion into acting Shakespeare for mid-career professionals during the height of our summer season.
Ground yourself in Shakespeare’s language and aesthetics with daily classes in Linklater Voice, Movement & Dance, Monologue and Sonnet work, Structure of the Verse, and the Actor-Audience Relationship – all on the Shakespeare & Company campus, nestled in the beautiful Berkshires.
This intensive is suitable for actors, teachers, directors, and professors. It is an opportunity for professional and artistic development. The schedule and tuition include admission to all three current shows and an evening off to enjoy some of the cultural offerings of the larger Berkshires community.
While the 9-Day Intensive is a stand-alone workshop, it also serves as the summer module and Foundation course for our new Modular Actor Training Program, launching in the fall of 2025.
DATES: August 20 to 29, 2025
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus, Lenox, MA
TUITION: $1,495 USD**
BIPOC TUITION: $1,325
**Alumni and union discounts available. Email training@shakespeare.org for details.
HOUSING: Participants are responsible for securing their own housing, however, we do have a few dorm rooms available on campus for an additional $400, first-come, first-serve.
*Housing is double occupancy with shared bathrooms and kitchen facilities.
PLEASE NOTE: All participants and workshop staff are required to have the most recent COVID-19 vaccine one is eligible for and will be asked to self-assess for any illness symptoms, including fever, upon arrival.
Click here to apply.
Clowning For Actors
Led by Shakespeare & Company master clown teacher and faculty member Micheal F. Toomey, this workshop explores the transformative world of Clown and blends physical theater, improvisation, and the authentic self to help actors rediscover their Clown and deepen their capacity for connection, presence, and play.
Across cultures, the Clown has served as a mischief-maker and a mirror. They reveal what is most human in all of us—and ask us to laugh at it. In this three-day experience, actors will discover what is most human, most vulnerable, and most ridiculous about themselves—and invite the audience to laugh.
All levels of experience and ability are encouraged to participate.
DATES: POSTPONED, New dates to be announced
LOCATION: Shakespeare & Company campus, Lenox, Mass.
FACULTY: Michael F. Toomey
TUITION: $395; alumni (15%) and union (10%) discounts are available.
BIPOC ARTIST and STUDENT TUITION: $345
PLEASE NOTE: For all in-person workshops, all participants and workshop staff are encouraged to have completed a COVID-19 vaccine regimen. For all programs held on the Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, Mass., this includes being up to date on the most recent COVID-19 vaccine dose(s) for which one is eligible.
Course Gallery
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You will study...
.01 Linklater Voice
The full progression of Kristin Linklater’s approach to voice training for actors is taught during the four weeks by Designated Linklater voice teachers. In addition to daily classes in Linklater, voice teachers regularly join in text classes and offer specialized classes to help participants integrate the voice work into their scenes.
.02 Movement
The movement progression includes Pure Movement (Swings), Alexander Technique, physical expressivity, and dance. Participants will be guided through exercises to promote awareness of (and release from) habitual body tension, sensitivity to impulse, dynamic physical presence and stamina, delight in moving with passion and precision, and ensemble.
.03 Text Work
Basics introduces the actor to a text approach which demands an open and personal commitment to thought, word, and gesture. Basics evolves into scene work, first through Dropping In (an approach to experiencing the text on a word-by-word basis) and into text analysis and detailed scene work. Classes in Sonnet and Structure of the Verse round out the text progression, allowing actors to merge their personal connection with the form of Shakespeare’s language.
.04 Actor/Audience Relationship
The participant is invited to explore the Elizabethan world of Actor/Audience Relationship—a theatrical reality without a fourth wall, in which the immediate energy of the audience fuels the actor to reveal a deeper level of truth and experience, which in turns enkindles the audience’s ability to receive Shakespeare’s language.
.05 Clown & Stage Fight
The participant is invited to explore the Elizabethan world of Actor/Audience Relationship—a theatrical reality without a fourth wall, in which the immediate energy of the audience fuels the actor to reveal a deeper level of truth and experience, which in turns enkindles the audience’s ability to receive Shakespeare’s language.
Tuition
A limited number of scholarships are available for People of the Global Majority/BIPOC artists from the Dennis Krausnick Fellowship Fund. Contact us for more information.
You will learn:
- A deeper connection of the body and voice when acting on stage
- Confidence to be fully present on stage when speaking Shakespeare's language
- An understanding of the forms and structures that support the actor’s emotional, visceral and cognitive imagination
- The skills necessary to authentically deliver Shakespeare’s language with accuracy, specificity, and clarity of thought
- A renewed trust in yourself as a theatre artist
