ABOUT SHAKESPEARIENCE

Shakespearience is a twenty-five year old, charitable, non-profit organization whose mission is to deliver inclusive, non-competitive, educational programs to young people between the ages of 8 and 18 in Grades 3-12 which cross all age, academic, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic boundaries.

WHAT WE DO

Shakespearience has three initiatives currently running with more in development. At the present time, we offer

• An in-class workshop that gets into more than a hundred classrooms all over Ontario between September and June
• An after-hours program for students attending high school in a priority neighbourhood, rehearsing scenes tied together by a theme which will be presented at a professional theatre
• A summer program for under-resourced adolescents in Grades 7 and up which, like the after-hours program, involves rehearsing scenes tied together by a theme which are presented for family and friends at a professional theatre

Since we began operations in 1998 we have established a proven track record for developing a wide range of transferable soft skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, empathy, collaboration and teamwork through the fostering of crucial character, confidence and communication skills. This is achieved by bolstering young people’s resiliency with respect to the way they think, feel, behave and relate to themselves and each other by demonstrating how seemingly insurmountable challenges -- such as demystifying Shakespeare’s language --  can be overcome with a little persistence, patience, concentration and application.

HOW WE DO IT

We are assisted in this mission with the help of more than one hundred of this country’s finest actors who come into classrooms all over Ontario or drop by rehearsals for our summer and after-hours program to show students and participants how an artist’s tools and approach to the text can help them unlock it in a way that makes it meaningful, relevant and useful.