NCShakes Announces 2014 'Shakespeare To Go' Statewide Tour

The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival (NCShakes) announces a record schedule of engagements by schools across the state for its Shakespeare To Go program of performances, classroom visits and workshops. The professional theatre company has been touring North Carolina schools since 1978, reaching annually more than 20,000 students. This program features reduced versions of Shakespeare's most studied plays presented by a cast of young professional actors and accompanied by Study Guides and optional classroom visitations and workshops.

Shakespeare To Go supports teachers and students in their study of William Shakespeare's world and works. According to Pedro Silva, NCShakes' Managing and Artistic Director, and founder of the tour program in 1978, "The tour is a living visual aid and teacher tool that provides students with a context within which to appreciate and understand Shakespeare's language, characters and themes. As important, it serves as valued cultural and artistic purpose in broadening our students' horizon about the nature of art and performance."

Over the years, NCShakes' school tour program has grown from featuring two actors to its current complement of seven actors. The program travels light, with simple setting s that make it possible for Shakespeare To Go to set up and strike quickly, and to perform in virtually any location at a school.

This year's Shakespeare To Go tour features "Hamlet" for high schools and "The Comedy of Errors" for elementary and middle schools. The actors in the performing company are Thomas Bell of Madison Heights, VA; Joseph Bromfield of Chattanooga, TN; Alexandra Leigh of Philadelphia, PA; Corey Keller of Newell, WV; Courtney M. McClellan of Nashville, TN; Jeffrey Mindock of Allentown, PA; and, Julie Robles of Wallingford, CT.

The 2014 tour of NCShakes' Shakespeare To Go is made possible by special grant support from Bandwidth, Coca Cola Consolidated, Guilford County, GSK, Robinson Bradshaw Hinson, Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, Target and Wells Fargo.

The mission of NCShakes is to entertain, educate and enrich North Carolina students and citizens with quality professional productions of the world's great plays and with in-school and life-long learning opportunities. For further information about NCShakes, Shakespeare To Go and other Outreach and Education Programs, call 336-841-2273 or visit www.ncshakes.org.

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