Red Bull Theater's TWELFTH NIGHT to Launch School Tour

Red Bull Theater's production of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or What You Will will tour schools in the New York City area in Spring 2027, providing students with a live theatrical experience.

Produced by Red Bull Theater in collaboration with Apocalyptic Artists Ensemble, Twelfth Night will feature vibrant music, and be supported by in-school workshops for students led by teaching artists. Adapted and directed by Kea Trevett, this production for young audiences will transform familiar school spaces – classrooms, cafeterias, auditoriums – into the topsy turvy land of Illyria.

Shipwrecked on a foreign shore, and believing her twin brother drowned, Viola disguises herself as a young man to serve in the court of the Count Orsino. Soon after, she finds herself at the center of a passionate love triangle between herself, Orsino, and the Lady Olivia. What will become of this? Twelfth Night shows us a world turned upside down and reminds us that in life and in love we are all fools. What might we learn from our folly? And how can folly reveal our true selves and our heart's true desires – what we 'will?'

ABOUT SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOLS

• Red Bull's In-School Residency program introduces Shakespeare's plays in an accessible manner and engages the creativity of students through interactive exercises. Our trained teaching artists draw young people into the world of Shakespeare's plays through movement, speech, and performance. Teaching through hands-on exercises and performance allows students to internalize the language, and to have fun! This program simultaneously provides classroom teachers valuable tools to integrate Shakespeare into lesson plans across the curriculum, to develop a repertory of methods for helping their students connect substantively with Shakespeare, and to become more confident teaching Shakespeare's plays, themes, and language. The program aligns with the NYC Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts.
• Red Bull Theater's annual In-School Touring Production is produced in collaboration with Apocalyptic Artists Ensemble. This tour and its associated residencies brings the plays of William Shakespeare directly to schools. A cast of professional actors and teaching artists, with minimal sets and props and live music create the world of Shakespearean play in the very classrooms, gymnasiums and theater spaces the students are in every day.
• Off-Broadway Student Matinees provide students the opportunity to see fully realized professional productions of classical plays at Off-Broadway venues. This exciting opportunity allows students to interact with professional actors through lively talkbacks and see what fully realized productions of classics can be.
• Hunts Point Children's Shakespeare Ensemble is a troupe of young actors and singers who work for 8 months to perform a professionally produced, 90-minute Shakespeare play, complete with sets, lights, costumes, and original music. The program gives students the opportunity to examine, comprehend, and internalize a Shakespeare play with the aim of owning and embodying the characters, the text, and the story. Focused on increasing student confidence, literacy skills, critical thinking, school engagement, social skills, emotional intelligence, and building ensemble, students explore the universal human themes in Shakespeare's work, while also developing the focus, discipline, and long term commitment necessary to accomplish putting on a 90-minute piece of theater.