Nationally replicated and locally treasured, the annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare brings more than 500 high school students together each year for a nine-week, non-competitive exploration of multiple Shakespeare plays.

The flagship of Shakespeare & Company’s Education Program, the annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare is a residency at 10 high schools in Massachusetts and New York. Shakespeare & Company directing teams lead students at each school through a language-based exploration of different Shakespeare plays, culminating in full-scale productions at their schools and on the main stage at our own Tina Packer Playhouse. When high-energy teenagers are turned loose  through the power of Shakespeare’s language, the thrill is palpable, and the houses are packed.

The Fall Festival deeply engages students through personally meaningful, educationally rigorous and dramatically compelling experiences of Shakespeare’s classical dramas. The Festival is truly a celebration, never a competition. Students from multiple schools work collaboratively, exploring Shakespeare’s words, unpacking the humor and the heartbreak, the intensity and humanity of these unparalleled plays.