The Atlanta Shakespeare Company Education Programs

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company's Education programs provide opportunities for students, educators and parents throughout Georgia and the Southeast to experience the power of Shakespeare's language and dramatic vision through play, passion, poetry, active participation and performance using dynamic, language-based methods. 

We do this through interactive, fast-paced “playshops” in the classroom; useful, in-depth study guides for all our school programs and performances; in-school and after-school residencies of varying lengths where the full power of Shakespeare in performance can be experienced by your entire school and summer programs that delve deep into the world of Shakespeare performance and study for students and teachers alike.

Our Education Artists

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company is committed to offering professional actors, skilled in the performance of Shakespeare, the chance to share their expertise and insight with students and teaching professionals throughout the education system.  At ASC, we believe trained, professional artists can make special, sometimes magical, connections with young people that contribute knowledge, motivation, and inspiration to growing students and artists.

  • We do this to promote our community’s cultural growth through exciting “play”shops, programs and performances.
  • We create an inclusive, playful environment that challenges students and teachers to engage with Shakespeare’s poetry, ideas and passion.
  • We provide specialized training for our artists, to ensure the highest quality educational and artistic experiences for students and teachers alike. 

Our Performances

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company is the only professional theater company in Georgia actively producing the classics throughout the entire academic school year.  Our Shakespeare performance style, known as Original Practice, is free of modern concepts or interpretations.  We perform Shakespeare "straight up": in a manner consistent with the author's original intent and using Shakespeare’s First Folio of plays, printed in 1623 by his fellow artists.

Original Practice at The Tavern also means that students and teachers will:

  • Sit in Atlanta’s only Elizabethan playhouse, inspired by Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre.
  • Watch actors costumed in hand-made Elizabethan period costumes.
  • Hear period music on live instruments.
  • Thrill to dynamic, dramatic sword fights.
  • Participate in a living, breathing, and exciting theatre experience, made more visceral by the active relationship between the actor and audience through poetry.

Studying and then watching Shakespeare in performance like this inspires enthusiasm for clear, articulate, truthful and astute interpretations of the plays.  Nothing gets in the way of understanding the story and characters, their language, motivations or lives.  By no means are these museum recreations of the plays, either.  For us, just like the people of Shakespeare's Globe, poetry is a living thing brought into existence through the active relationship of actor, audience, and playwright. 

Join our Educator E-mail List!

ASC education programs started just six years ago when I got a group of teachers together one December morning for a few hours. I had contacted about 12 teachers on our mailing list whom had been coming to Tavern matinee performances with their students for years.  I wanted their feedback on some workshops I had designed so we enjoyed snacks and had fun exploring some new exercises I had learned in the two year advanced Education study arc I had just finished.

That day I learned a lot about what Georgia teachers really need in their classrooms and how the Atlanta Shakespeare Company could help impact Georgia students. 

We have learned so much since that day way back when!  Little did I know how incredibly dedicated, informed and passionate our “Tavern Teachers” as I came to call them, were going to be. 

Whether ASC artists are teaching a “playshop”, facilitating a Q&A in a classroom or after a matinee, or teaching an after-school residency, Tavern Teachers are the backbone of our outreach into schools across the southeast.  We absolutely could not do it without you!  In fact, if you would like to be an official “Tavern Teacher” just join our email list- email me at laura@shakespearetavern.com and put Join Tavern Teachers in the subject heading.  I send out the (very) occasional email about education initiatives, advocacy, what is coming up in ASC Education, and every once in a while I ask your advice on something that is affecting our Education programs directly.



 

 

 

Education Sponsors


The Leitalift Foundation
The Harry A. Fields Foundation
Francis Abreu Charitable Trust