The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival
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The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is an annual theatre festival in Philadelphia. Every year, The Festival produces two or three plays by or about William Shakespeare in Repertory between the months of March and May, and is the most successful local source of Shakespeare education, with a record of over 20,000 Philadelphia school children being involved in the Open Door Project. Starting out as the Red Heel Theatre in 1989, and changing name and purpose in 1993, The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is now the region’s only theatre devoted entirely to Shakespeare’s works.
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[edit] Open Door Project
The Open Door Project, which is The Festival’s educational outreach and includes school matinees and Artist-in-Residence programs, comprises more than a third of the overall performances of the entire Festival. Thousands of students come to see The Festival every year as part of the school matinees, many of whom take part in the Artist-in-Residence program, which places actors in classrooms to teach the students about Shakespeare’s work. In Addition, The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival creates its own original curriculum for each play they produce.
[edit] Young Professionals Company
Technically part of the Open Door Project, the Young Professionals Company is a sort of training ground for up and coming actors new to the Philadelphia theatre community. Since they started in 2003, the company has continued to produce plays which are free to the public.
[edit] Shakespeare Café
The Shakespeare Café is a new program being introduced in the 2007 season. Following the trend of trying to make Shakespeare more digestible, this is The Festival’s new, less formal show featuring shows based on the Bard’s work. They plan to have an improvisation comedy show with ComedySportz as well as a jazz performance by Arpeggio Jazz Quartet and a new play featuring Shakespeare's fights.
[edit] Past Festivals
2008 Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, Prince of Tyre
2007 Othello, The Taming of the Shrew
2006 The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
2005 Hamlet, As You Like It
2004 Julius Caesar, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
2002 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Cymbeline
2001 Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Romeo and Juliet
2000 The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter’s Tale, Hamlet
