Touchstone Celebrates Shakespeare's The Tempest During Nat'l Endowment for the Arts

This November, Touchstone launches a tour of their production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest to middle and high schools throughout eastern Pennsylvania. These performances, accompanied by workshops and demonstrations led by Touchstone artists, are Touchstone's participation in an initiative founded by the National Endowment for the Arts, entitled Shakespeare for a New Generation.

Touchstone is one of 40 professional theatre companies selected by the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest to participate in Shakespeare for a New Generation, bringing the finest productions of Shakespeare to thousands of middle- and high-school students in communities across the United States. This is the eighth year of Shakespeare in American Communities, the largest tour of Shakespeare in American history.

Honored to be part of the program, Touchstone Theatre presents its acclaimed adaptation of The Tempest, a performance in which a cast of three plays ten-plus roles in 90 minutes. This production opened last November as part of Touchstone's mainstage season and toured to the Baltimore Theatre Project in Baltimore, MD, and Abbey Hill Theatre in Easton, PA.

Accompanying the production will be a series of workshops and lecture-demonstrations, designed to educate students about acting technique, performing Shakespeare's text, and connecting verse with content to create moments that resonate with the performer and audience, even four hundred years after they were written.

Touchstone's arts-in-education initiative, ArtsTouch, has been a celebrated force in the Lehigh Valley community for over ten years, featuring programs like Building Bridges, which uses music and theatre arts as a means of engaging with emotionally troubled teens, and the Young Playwrights' Lab, in which students from elementary and middle school learn to craft their own original plays. Last year, the company's education programming toured to 17 schools and two colleges in Pennsylvania, reaching about 7,800 students.

"To be recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts for our work is always a great honor," says Touchstone Touring Manager and Ensemble Member Bill George, "and this grant will enable us to expose more youth to our unique take on Shakespeare in a deeper and more personal way."

Touchstone launches the tour this November at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts. Other schools they will be visiting over the next six months include: Allentown School District, Bethlehem Area School District, Bangor Area School District, Pocono Mountain School District, and Gettysburg Area School District. The tour will run through April of next year.

Celebrating thirty years in operation, Touchstone Theatre offers a season of mainstage performances for the general public including contemporary, classic, and original ensemble-created works at the theatre's headquarters in Bethlehem, PA. Touchstone has gained a reputation of being a pre-eminent provider of arts-in-education programs for at-risk and underserved youth. Whether on site at the theatre, at local schools or on tour, the Touchstone Ensemble has developed long-term relationships with educators who request the company return to bring innovative programs that engage students who have a passion for the arts and/or otherwise would not be exposed to the arts. Visit us on the web at www.touchstone.org.

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.