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Shakespeare in Action

CTE photo
Shakespeare in Action’s fall 2010 production of Romeo and Juliet, with Bahareh Yaraghi (Juliet) and Kaleb Alexander (Romeo). Photo by Joel Charlebois.

Toronto-based, multi-racial Shakespearean theatre company for young audiences. The company aspires to enhance the arts and education by bringing Shakespeare's plays to children and students across Toronto. Founded in 1988 by Michael Kelly, its Artistic Director until 2020, Shakespeare in Action offers a wide variety of programming for students, teachers and the community, including in-class workshops, mainstage productions, summer camp programs and more. In 2009 the Company became the Artist Company in Residence at Toronto's Central Commerce Collegiate Institute. It also partnered with TD Bank and the Toronto Public Library to produce the Shakespeare for Kids Library Club, a free program where children learn to understand Shakespearean language through acting and movement.

Shakespeare in Action has mounted mainstage productions in the Central Commerce Collegiate auditorium, and, more recently at its home base, Artscape Weston Commons in northwest Toronto. Its popular staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, first realized in 2001 and remounted yearly, was nominated for a Dora Award in 2010. The 2011 season also included Romeo and Juliet and The Diary of Anne Frank, the Company’s first non-Shakespeare production. To go along with these performances the Company’s educational office provides free resource packs to teachers and students, and will also design residency programs for specific plays. In February 2011 the company also launched its Virtual Lab, a series of online educational videos designed for students and teachers. Using the Lab, students can karaoke with Shakespeare’s characters and practice scenes from his plays.

In 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic closed theatre spaces across Canada and around the world, Shakespeare in Action mounted an on-line production of Alphonse by Wajdi Mouawad — a one-person show about a young boy walking alone down a road, and the imaginative world he inhabits; and 3 Tempests by Pete Smith, which explores the commonalities between Shakespeare, COVID-19, and Hurricane Hazel, performed at Little Avenue Memorial Park.

The current Artistic Director is David di Giovanni.

Website: www.shakespeareinaction.org

Last updated 2021-10-12