The Center for Actor Training Launches its Nation-wide Fall Schedule in North Carolina
RALEIGH, N.C. – Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training kicks off its fall programming in Raleigh Friday, September 27 through Sunday, September 29, with a Weekend Intensive for professional actors and theater students.
Led by Center for Actor Training faculty members Kristen Moriarty and Gwendolyn Schwinke, this acting intensive is an immersive introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s Actor Training aesthetic and designed for theater professionals, acting students, and others seeking an introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s training methods.
Schwinke, who trained at the Center for Actor Training and has worked with Shakespeare & Company for more than 15 years, said the immersive format of Weekend Intensives is what drew her to the program, and what compelled her to stay on as faculty.
“My very first encounter with Shakespeare & Company was as a participant in a Weekend Intensive,” she said, “and I still get excited about the opportunity to lead an intensive. Working with Shakespeare is so exciting for me as an actor and a teacher, because he gives us an amazing playground: we get to explore the big questions, to take risks, to sharpen our intellect, and to be completely ridiculous.
“The participants form a supportive community that really allows for deep artistic transformation, Schwinke added. “There’s so much joy.”
Throughout the weekend, voice, movement, and monologue work are integrated with attention paid to identifying and offering skills specific to each participant’s needs. Shakespeare’s language is further explored through dynamic group and individual exercises.
Shakespeare & Company’s Weekend Intensives are held year-round in cities across the U.S. Following Raleigh’s session, the Center for Actor Training will hold intensives through November in San Jose, Calif.; Lenox, Mass.; New York, N.Y., and Chicago, Ill.
For more information or to apply, visit shakespeare.org/actor-training or call 413.637.1199, ext. 114. Student, BIPOC, alumni, and union discounts are available.
Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training
The aesthetic of Shakespeare & Company was devised by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer, Founding Director of Training Kristin Linklater, and a cadre of expert teachers.The Center for Actor Training’s approach is continually investigated, redefined, and reinvigorated, and welcomes actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world to work with the Company’s faculty.
Kristen Moriarty
(she/her/hers)
Kristen Moriarty is the Training Programs Manager for the Center for Actor Training, a teaching artist, actor, and private acting coach. After earning her BFA in Acting/Dance at Adelphi University, she worked as an actor and movement choreographer in Chicago for several years before pursuing an MFA in acting/teaching at the University of Montana. In 2011, while earning her MFA, she concurrently began training with Shakespeare & Company and is a proud alumna of the Center for Actor Training. Under the guidance of her teaching mentors, including Dennis Krausnick and Andrew Borthwick-Leslie, she began her journey as a teacher trainee with Shakespeare & Company in 2017, and joined the multi-hyphenate faculty in 2022. Kristen has also taught or been a guest artist at the University of Montana, University of Washington-Tacoma, San Jose State University, and Seattle University, and is currently teaching voice & speech at the University of Connecticut and training to become a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher.
Gwendolyn Schwinke
(she/her)
Gwendolyn Schwinke has served as voice and text coach at Shakespeare & Company for The Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Or, Ugly Lies the Bone, The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, The Unexpected Man and Shakespeare, and the Language that Shaped a World, and created and directed Worse than Wolves for Henry VI.6. She is Resident Vocal Coach for PlayMakers Repertory Company and teaches voice in the MFA program at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Gwendolyn has worked as vocal coach for other professional companies including Oxford Shakespeare Company (MS), Atlantic Stage (SC), Cheap Theatre and Frank Theatre in Minneapolis, and for multiple university productions. Professional acting credits include Gertrude in Hamlet, Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Adam in As You Like It, Desdemona in Carlyle Brown’s The Masks of Othello, Margie in Good People, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, Jesse in ‘night Mother, and numerous other roles. She holds an MFA from Illinois State University, is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, a Certified Feldenkrais Movement Teacher, a Certified Teacher of the Colaianni Approach to Speech and Accents, and a member of Actor’s Equity.
