TN Shakespeare Co. Approved For Grant Award From The National Endowment For The Arts To Support 7th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series

Tennessee Shakespeare Company today was announced as having been approved for a $10,000 Arts Projects grant award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support the 7th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series. 

The Series will produce free, 90-minute performances of William Shakespeare's fantastical late play The Tempest in non-traditional, outdoor venues throughout Shelby County in October with a multicultural cast of classical actors. 

TSC's Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series is among 1,130 projects across the country, totaling more than $31 million, that were selected during this second round of grant funding for Arts Projects during fiscal year 2023.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, including Tennessee Shakespeare Company's 7th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”

Tennessee Shakespeare Company is the Mid-South's professional, classical theatre soon to enter its 16th season in Memphis.  TSC's Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series performs at a variety of outdoor venues, including those in Lakeland, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, downtown, mid-town, and East Memphis.  

Over 1,600 Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series audience members were served this past season with Macbeth, a record for the Series. 

“We are, as we have been each year, deeply grateful to the NEA for its continued support of TSC's intrepid theatre work in non-traditional spaces, as well as in our public schools, in youth detention centers, and in the Memphis V.A. Hospital,” says TSC founder and Producing Artistic Director, Dan McCleary.  “The NEA continues to help ensure TSC delivers on our dual missions of bringing Shakespeare performance to everyone in our community and of moving the arts closer to the center of every child's formal education. If we can get one person to hear Shakespeare's verse for the first time at each performance of this project, I deem it a success.”

For more information on other projects included in the NEA grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news. For more information on Tennessee Shakespeare Company, visit https://tnshakespeare.org/.

TSC's generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, Arts Midwest, ArtsMemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, Independent Bank, Evans Petree  PC, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Campbell Clinic, the family of Pat and Ernest Kelly, The Sims Family Charitable Trust, Nancy R. Copp, the Jack Jones Children's Literacy Fund, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, and Dorothy O. Kirsch.

TSC's season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee; and is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534, awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of Treasury.  TSC's projects and productions are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.  To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

TSC's programming and outreach partners include University of Memphis' Department of Theatre & Dance, Shelby County Schools, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, the Memphis V.A. Hospital, Cities of Bartlett/Collierville/Lakeland/Memphis, Shelby County Election Commission, the Benjamin Hooks Public Library Friends, and WKNO Radio (91.1 FM Memphis).

Tennessee Shakespeare Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre and education organization in Memphis dedicated to performing live, diverse productions of William Shakespeare's plays, as well as works of social significance by classical, Southern, and modern writers; and to providing innovative educational and training programming.

Founded in 2008 by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, Tennessee Shakespeare Company is Memphis' first and only professional, classical theatre.  In 2017, TSC purchased its first performing arts facility, which is being renovated into the state's only permanent home for professional, year-round Shakespeare performance, education, and training.  The company is engaged in its Brave New World capital campaign with a goal of $9.2 million, of which nearly one-third has been raised.

TSC has engaged its community with 60 site-specific plays and events for over 53,000 patrons. Its ground-breaking Education and Outreach Program has reached 120 schools across nine states, totaling over 285,000 student interactions. The Program has achieved a high regional and national profile, partners annually with most local school systems, and this year is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest's Shakespeare in American Communities grants: one for The Macbeth Initiative in underserved local schools, and the other for expanded residencies with local incarcerated youth.  TSC is one of just a handful of U.S. theatres to be awarded this grant for the fourth consecutive year.

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