Shakespeare & Company to Celebrate The Bard's Birthday This Month

Shakespeare festivals around the globe are paying homage to the world's greatest playwright with yearlong celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare & Company is proud to join this worldwide movement, and will kick off the 2016 Performance Season with a Shakespeare 400 Bard Birthday Celebration. Please join us in the Tina Packer Playhouse on Saturday, April 23 at 7pm, for the Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare's Macbeth followed by a post-show reception, with birthday cake.

"We always celebrate among ourselves in some way, but this year is especially notable in that it marks the four hundredth anniversary of the man's death," said Artistic Director Jonathan Croy. "This has spurred a worldwide remembrance and acknowledgement of the incredible impact he had on our culture, our language, and the ways that we perceive ourselves."

Inspired by a prophecy from a trio of witches, consumed by ambition, and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth becomes a tyrannical ruler awash with guilt and paranoia. Experience some of the most visceral of Shakespeare's language in the haunted, terrible sea of red that is Macbeth, in this 90-minute version including a post-show reception with the artists.

"Macbeth is a wise and wonderful play-dark and sexy, violent and evocative," said Croy. "It's a terrifyingly honest trip down the downward spiral of moral corruption that ambition can lead to, and sadly, out of all of Shakespeare's plays, it's one of the most relevant to our times- especially in an election year."

An illuminating and immersive experience for the whole family to enjoy; Macbeth has six actors playing multiple roles. The performance is general admission. Tickets are $10 for students, $20 for adults. Tickets are available the day of the presentation, or in advance from the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or boxoffice@shakespeare.org.

Tickets for the entire 2016 performance season are now on sale. Both the Tina Packer Playhouse and the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre are wheelchair accessible and hearing-aid assisted. For more information on our summer performance season, Shakespeare 400 Events or our year-round programming visit www.shakespeare.org.

Each winter and spring, a team of Company actors and teachers brings a 90-minute production of one of Shakespeare's plays to schools and theatres throughout the Northeast. Each winter and spring, a team of six Shakespeare & Company actor/teachers travels throughout the northeast, visiting high schools, middle schools, colleges and theaters, teaching students and performing a 90-minute production of one of Shakespeare's plays. Though fully produced, this "Bare Bard" style production emphasizes language, pleasure in playing, and the relationship between the actors and the audience.