Enrollment for Tennessee Shakespeare Company's Training Camps Now Open

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, the Mid-South's professional, classical theatre and education organization, is offering two unique, immersive Shakespeare Training Camps to be held for the first time on the campus of the University of Memphis this June.

TSC's Shakespeare Training Camps are open to students entering Grades 6-12. The one-week camp (The Play's The Thing: June 8-12) explores Shakespeare's As You Like It and is ideal for participants with little or no theatre experience. The cost per participant of the one-week camp is $250. Lunches are available for an additional charge.

The two-week camp (Young Players Training Intensive: June 15-26) is ideal for participants with a little more theatre experience. The cost per participant of the two-week camp is $500. Lunches are available for an additional charge.

Both camps run from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm, Monday-Friday; and both camps are already one-third full. The final scene-sharings for each camp will be played on the Mainstage in the Theatre Building. Camp sessions will be held in the adjacent Communication and Fine Arts Building at the University of Memphis.

These fun camps offer young participants a conservatory setting and the opportunity to train with several of TSC's professional actor-teachers. TSC's team of teachers will introduce a variety of skills and disciplines from which participants may then take personal ownership of Shakespeare's text.

As a special bonus, campers will get to see their teachers in TSC's professional production of A Midsummer Night's Dream playing at the University of Memphis in June as part of their Shakespeare experience.

"For children new to Shakespeare, you couldn't ask for a better introduction," promises Education Director, Stephanie Shine. "Meeting these plays as a player of Shakespeare makes them immediate, accessible, and most of all fun. After the TSC camp experience, a student will eagerly greet Shakespeare like a good friend when they meet him again in a traditional classroom. And for those young players who are returning to our camp or who already have experience on stage, the two-week program will be an energized and professional introduction to new disciplines that will challenge participants in all new ways."

Playing, training, and rehearsing just like TSC actors, participants are led through sessions in Stage Combat, Text Work, Scene Play, Voice Work, Stage Movement, Viewpoints, Shakespeare in Song, and Elizabethan Dance. Both Shakespeare Training Camps are performance-based, and culminate in a public sharing of soliloquies, scenes, combat, and dance.

Through TSC's camps, participants gain a deeper understanding of collaboration, a greater awareness of themselves, and enhanced confidence.

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